PRIVATE BUSINESS

Broads Authority Bill

Order for Third Reading read.
	 To be read a Third time on Thursday 21 February.

Oral Answers to Questions

CHURCH COMMISSIONERS

The hon. Member for Middlesbrough, representing the Church Commissioners, was asked—

Parsonage Houses

Robert Key: With reference to the Ecclesiastical Offices (Terms of Service) Measure, for what reason the ownership of a parsonage house is being removed from incumbents and vested in the diocese.

Stuart Bell: Good morning, Mr. Speaker. The proposal, which recognises that housing is an important element in the terms of service of office holders, seeks the provision of appropriate accommodation and the establishment of a consistent framework to govern the relationship between housing providers and office holders.

Robert Key: Will the Church Commissioners listen carefully to the concerns of the diocesan synods and the meeting of the Church of England General Synod next week about this transfer of £4 billion of property from the parishes to the dioceses? The current legal vehicle, the corporation sole, ensures unencumbered continuity of these properties from generation to generation. The new trust will not do that. Will the hon. Gentleman assure me that the commissioners will look carefully to see that the property vested in the new parsonage boards of the dioceses will be as safe and inviolable as it is under the current legal arrangements?

Stuart Bell: I can assure the hon. Gentleman that we shall listen very carefully to the views of the General Synod next week. As he will know, "Render unto Caesar that which belongs to Caesar". To reverse the role, we must render unto the General Synod that which belongs to the General Synod. It will meet next week to discuss the matter. There are differences of views, but the hon. Gentleman, who is a member of the Synod, will be able to participate in those proceedings as well as the proceedings here.

David Taylor: A large proportion of parsonage houses were endowed locally. Land was given by a local landowner, and the houses were often built by a local individual after a fundraising effort on a grand scale. Why should we interfere with arrangements that have worked well for many years? We are transferring the title to the diocesan body, which will undoubtedly have a significantly different agenda of its own—different from that of the local community.

Stuart Bell: In order to enlighten my hon. Friend and the House on what will be proposed and debated at the Synod next week, I can tell him that the primary aim of the legislation is to improve the security of the clergy by giving them rights equivalent to those enjoyed by employees under the Employment Relations Act 1999. As I said, the General Synod will consider that significant piece of legislation next week, and we await the outcome of its considerations.

Richard Benyon: I refer hon. Members to my entry in the Register of Members' Interests. I would like to follow up a point made by the hon. Member for North-West Leicestershire (David Taylor). Many parsonage homes were endowed locally for the furtherance of the Church's work locally. This centralising measure will take power away from benefices and give it to diocesan boards of finance. Will the hon. Gentleman representing the Church Commissioners convey the serious concern that exists among a great many people throughout the country about this centralising measure?

Stuart Bell: I welcome the hon. Gentleman to these question sessions, and I also welcome the pertinence of his question. Clearly, the matter he raises preoccupies Members of the House. The General Synod will be aware of that when it meets next week, and I have no doubt that the views expressed here will be taken into account in its debates.

ELECTORAL COMMISSION COMMITTEE

The hon. Member for Gosport, representing the Speaker's Committee on the Electoral Commission, was asked—

Democratic Process (Public Participation)

John Robertson: What additional measures the Electoral Commission has considered to increase public participation in the democratic process.

Peter Viggers: The Electoral Commission undertakes a range of activities to ensure people understand how to register and how to vote. Additionally, the commission is launching a campaign with London Elects to provide information about the London election on 1 May, and an information campaign for the English and Welsh local elections on the same day.

John Robertson: I thank the hon. Gentleman for his answer. He will know that in last year's local elections, an attempt was made to increase voting through voting by phone. Unfortunately, a report came out in which the commissioners said that such schemes had a negligible effect on turnout. Will he explain why that was, what lessons were learned from that experience, and how they are going to take the process forward in the London elections this year?

Peter Viggers: The hon. Gentleman makes a detailed point and I would like, if I may, to investigate the matter. I undertake to write to him about it.
	On the more general point, other bodies undertake work to increase turnout and the commission has significantly refocused its public awareness activity on providing information about registration, elections and democratic institutions. Indeed, it is another main thrust of the Electoral Commission's work. Of course, it is still much involved in promoting registration and voting.

Ann Cryer: Will the hon. Gentleman comment on the number of local authorities that do a reasonable canvass of their areas to get more people on to the register? Little of that appears to be going on in the Bradford district. It is terribly important in Bradford because approximately 50 per cent. of the Asian community do not speak English and are illiterate. It would be a great help in my constituency if we had a really good canvass to get more people on to the register.

Peter Viggers: Yes, the commission works closely with local authorities throughout the United Kingdom to support and advise them on voter awareness activities. The commission provides voter information materials free of charge and runs training sessions with electoral registration officers. Support is also available via a dedicated website. In the past year, more than 2 million voter information leaflets and resources have been ordered by electoral administrators to encourage registration and understanding of the democratic process.
	On the hon. Lady's specific point, the Electoral Commission is vigilant in trying to ensure that a range of information and materials is available in different languages.

David Heath: As a non-conformist, I feel on rather safer ground with the Electoral Commission than I do with the Church Commissioners.
	The hon. Gentleman knows that there has been much debate about refocusing the Electoral Commission's work and tilting the balance towards regularity and probity in electoral matters. He knows that we are anticipating early legislation on the matter. What discussions has he held with the Lord Chancellor in advance of that legislation to ensure that the Electoral Commission can greatly expand its work and thus make sure that our elections are held fairly and properly?

Peter Viggers: I think the best answer I can give is that, although, on behalf of the Speaker's Committee, I do not personally become involved in negotiations and discussions with different Departments, it has occasionally been suggested that it would be appropriate for the House to deliberate on Electoral Commission issues. I instituted one debate, which was allowed by the Liaison Committee, on the subject, and perhaps it would be helpful for hon. Members to have an opportunity soon to discuss Electoral Commission issues. Indeed, given that we are seeking a new chairman for the commission, that would be very appropriate. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman agrees that a general discussion in the House might be useful.

Peter Luff: Hon. Members have repeatedly referred to voter registration as a key matter. Surely, we need, first and foremost, to heed the advice that the Electoral Commission has already given us and enact legislation on individual voter registration as a matter of urgency.

Peter Viggers: Indeed, since 2003, the Electoral Commission has urged that individual voter registration should be introduced. The subject causes the commission some concern because there is an opportunity in the current system for the head of a household, or the person who receives the mail, to deal with electoral registration as he thinks fit. Of course, in most cases, that is done with propriety, but there is an opportunity for corruption and for the head of a household to overlook the duty. The Electoral Commission has urged the introduction of individual registration.

Peter Soulsby: With respect to the hon. Gentleman, I do not think that he replied adequately to the question of my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (Mrs. Cryer). She made the point that the extent of under-registration in several areas can genuinely be addressed only by door-to-door canvassing. She asked what steps the commission was taking to ensure that such canvassing, which happens in many places, is adopted universally.

Peter Viggers: The Electoral Commission informs me that its advertising campaigns for the 2007 elections involved activity targeted at under-registered black, Chinese and Polish communities and included radio, press, outdoor and online advertising. The Electoral Commission has also undertaken special work to encourage students to register. It has been especially vigilant in trying to ensure that younger people and students are aware of their opportunity to register and vote.

Overseas Voters

Nigel Evans: What estimate the Electoral Commission has made of the number of eligible UK voters who live abroad but have not registered to vote.

Peter Viggers: Recent research suggests that the total number of British people who live abroad for a year or more may be approximately 5.5 million. Only British citizens who have registered to vote in the United Kingdom in the past 15 years are eligible to register while living abroad. There is no effective way of measuring that number.

Nigel Evans: One can only imagine why so many Brits want to live abroad. Of the many millions that my hon. Friend mentioned, only 13,000 are registered to vote in general elections. That is a low figure. The amount of money that the Electoral Commission spends on promoting voting abroad is £12,000. Is not that figure far too small? Should not it be greater and be properly focused to try to attract those who are eligible to register and vote?

Peter Viggers: The Electoral Commission ran a campaign last autumn at a cost of about £100,000, which was more than twice as much as was spent in advance of the previous general election. The problem, of course, is identifying the market. The number of people is extremely large, but the number registered is extremely small, as my hon. Friend pointed out. The most recent campaign to reach British citizens living abroad included online advertising, public relations activity, mailing to British people living overseas and the distribution of information via British embassies and high commissions.
	The Electoral Commission is also proposing to convene a seminar later this year with political parties to discuss ways of improving registration levels among overseas residents. How good it would be if we could learn something from the American elections. I understand that it is estimated that many thousands of American citizens living in London are exercising their right to vote. I have been advised to be cautious about quoting those numbers, but it would be nice to think that lessons could be learned from that campaign.

Bill Olner: One of the problems with the votes in the American presidential elections is that they sometimes arrive far too late to be counted, but that is another matter. I agree with the hon. Member for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans) that the number of people voting among those living abroad who are eligible to vote is woefully low. I wonder whether the electoral registration officers, who play such an important role in getting our registers up to date, have a role in attracting people who live overseas to register to vote.

Peter Viggers: The hon. Gentleman makes an extremely good point. There are three parties involved. The first is the Electoral Commission, which takes the view that it would not be proportionate for it to devote very large amounts of resources to overseas voters, because of the difficulties of reaching them. The second is the electoral registration officers and I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for making a valid point about them. I will discuss with the Electoral Commission what further can be done to enable them to fulfil their duties in that regard. The third is the political parties. The Electoral Commission takes the view that it is primarily the responsibility of the political parties to seek to encourage overseas citizens to register and vote in UK elections.

Julie Kirkbride: Does the Electoral Commission have a view on whether UK citizens living abroad have been deterred from bothering to register to vote by the Government's decision to cut the qualifying period during which people who have left the UK can participate in general elections?

Peter Viggers: This is of course a controversial issue. Parliament has taken the view that residents who have lived overseas for 15 years or less after their period of registration in the United Kingdom should vote. It has been suggested that that period should be lengthened or even shortened. My hon. Friend makes a fair point, although it would not be appropriate for me to express an opinion.

Tony Lloyd: Does the hon. Gentleman recognise that many of my constituents would regard spending resources that could be better used to increase registration among those who live in the United Kingdom as a gross waste of money? I have nothing against those who live abroad, but they often pay no taxes and break the connection. I would far sooner encourage UK residents to vote than those living overseas.

Peter Viggers: The Electoral Commission spends less than 2 per cent. of its budget on exhorting overseas residents to register and vote. The commission believes that to be a proportionate amount, but the hon. Gentleman's point will of course be noted.

CHURCH COMMISSIONERS

The hon. Member for Middlesbrough, representing the Church Commissioners, was asked—

Women Bishops

Nicholas Winterton: If he will make a statement on the consultation process in relation to women bishops in the Church of England.

Stuart Bell: A legislative drafting group, chaired by the Bishop of Manchester, having received more than 300 representations from across the Church, is now preparing a report for discussion at the General Synod, hopefully in July.

Nicholas Winterton: Is the hon. Gentleman concerned that an inadequate consultation opportunity has been given to the Third Province Movement, whose membership includes a significant number of clergy and laity? Will he please ensure an opportunity for the widest possible consultation on the women bishops' proposal, particularly with those who have prominent and active leadership roles in the Church?

Stuart Bell: The hon. Gentleman will know that the legislative drafting group has met a number of consultees representing a wide cross-section of views. The drafting group's challenging task is to identify possible arrangements for those who may be conscientiously unable to receive the ministry of women bishops. We should hesitate to be critical of those who are trying to preserve the Church of England as a broad church that gladly encompasses such differences. By way of teasing the hon. Gentleman, I shall use a phrase from the European Union: within the Church, there may be unity in diversity.

Vicarages/Rectories

Hugo Swire: How many listed vicarages and rectories the Church of England has sold in the last 10 years.

Stuart Bell: The information that the hon. Gentleman requests is not held centrally. However, since 2001, dioceses have been free to sell parsonages without any reference to the commissioners, so long as there are no objections, the sale meets standard criteria and the property is sold at full value.

Hugo Swire: I am most grateful to the hon. Gentleman. I share the general nervousness of other hon. Members about the centralisation of the Church estate, and I hope that he will make those views known to the Synod. Of course I understand the problems of merging parishes, which can, in some areas, leave too many vicarages or houses tied to the Church. Will he also convey to the Synod the feeling, particularly in rural areas, that the temptation to sell off desirable houses and to separate the rectory or vicarage from the church in order to make a quick cash gain can have long-term negative implications for the local community?

Stuart Bell: The hon. Gentleman puts his finger on one of the problems of our era. How can the Church deal with the changing nature of our society in relation to the location of our parsonages and churches? The points that he has raised, which are related to other points raised today, will be taken into account by the Synod and by the Church generally.

SOLICITOR-GENERAL

The Solicitor-General was asked—

Crown Prosecution Service

David Kidney: What assessment she has made of the performance of the Crown Prosecution Service in presenting victim impact statements to courts at sentencing.

Vera Baird: The Crown Prosecution Service has not conducted detailed assessments of its performance, but Law Officers and the CPS recognise that victim personal statements can have real value in providing victims of crime with a chance to tell a court about the impact that a crime has had on them. Under the CPS's victim focus scheme, prosecutors play a key role in helping bereaved families to make a victim personal statement.

David Kidney: It is great that a Labour Government whom I support and a Parliament in which I serve has acted decisively to put the rights of victims at the heart of the criminal justice system. How confident can my hon. and learned Friend be, however, that the component parts of the criminal justice system now have sufficiently robust systems in place to assure victims of the exercise of their rights? In respect of the Crown Prosecution Service in particular, is she satisfied that there is adequate guidance and training for members of staff to enable them to carry out their duties to the best of their abilities?

Vera Baird: I echo what my hon. Friend has said. It is a very important step indeed to put the victim at the centre of the criminal justice service, as it is now called. It is no longer a system; it now recognises itself to be a service, intended to provide people with the opportunity to tell a court concrete facts such as the effect that bail might have, and to give them the chance to express the way in which a crime has impacted on them.
	It is important that we learn as we go along, and that there is a lot of input from victims themselves into the way we develop the system. I am confident that the Crown Prosecution Service guidance is good and strong, and that there is a huge commitment from the individual officials at the CPS to make this scheme work. I do not doubt that there is learning still to be done, but these measures are capable of giving victims more satisfaction from the criminal justice system than they have had in the past.

Simon Hughes: Can the Solicitor-General confirm that it is now routine that, in every case, the victim is offered the opportunity to make a victim impact statement? Will she confirm that, in tragic cases of homicide, someone is able to give a statement to the court on behalf of the victim's family before sentencing?

Vera Baird: Yes, it certainly should always be the case that there is an opportunity to make a victim personal statement. The victim care unit, the Crown Prosecution Service and the police working together have made that process more secure. There are two schemes: the victim advocate scheme and the victim focus scheme for bereaved people. The victim focus scheme is run by the CPS and it has been rolled out nationally even while the victim advocate scheme, which was the pilot for bereaved families, is being assessed. The CPS feels that it has been such a beneficial scheme that it should be rolled out without further delay. The focus scheme gets the CPS to help a bereaved family to make just such a statement, but it is usually read by the prosecutor or simply read by the judge and referred to by the prosecutor. My understanding is that judges adjourn in order to make the point to the bereaved that they are reading and digesting what is in the statement.

Tony Lloyd: I also share the enthusiasm of my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Mr. Kidney) and, indeed, of the Solicitor-General for the victim impact statement process. There is a pilot in Manchester Crown court and I know that it is being well received there. Will my hon. and learned Friend go a little further today in saying how we can ensure that best practice is taken forward, as the court process is still intimidating, particularly when the victims themselves may be bereaved? The assistance that she described is extremely helpful, but how can we ensure that best practice is translated and spread across the whole service?

Vera Baird: I think we can say that we can do that. I am very grateful to my hon. Friend, whose area has seen a pilot of this advocate scheme, which has, I think, been well regarded. The assistance given by the CPS is not just to make a statement. It applies to bereaved families and to all kinds of bereavement caused through crime, including through road traffic crime. The CPS will meet the family beforehand and explain the whole process to them. One hopes that the inevitably daunting experience of attending court is alleviated a little by that exposure.

Crown Prosecution Service

Philip Davies: What assessment the Crown Prosecution Service has made of the effectiveness of the system for presenting objections to bail.

Vera Baird: The Crown Prosecution Service has not done a discrete assessment of the effectiveness of the system for presenting objections to bail. Police concerns about granting bail to the accused are reviewed objectively by prosecutors against the Bail Act criteria. Her Majesty's Crown Prosecution Service inspectorate periodically reviews CPS systems generally and has not identified any inherent weaknesses in performance.

Philip Davies: I am surprised at the Solicitor-General's response as in recent weeks we have seen an increasing number of dangerous people released on bail and going on to commit even more horrendous crimes. The police are sick to the back teeth of arresting the same people week after week who abuse the bail system and breach bail conditions, yet nothing ever seems to happen. What is the Solicitor-General going to do to deal with this abuse of bail and end her complacent approach, which we also saw in her earlier answer?

Vera Baird: There is nothing complacent about the Crown Prosecution Service or my approach to the issue of bail. In all the cases that have hit the headlines—I am not going to talk about the defendant called Swellings, because he has not yet been sentenced—the CPS opposed bail robustly, repeatedly and at length. The law in the UK is that a person is not guilty on the basis of an accusation, but only when they have been proven guilty before a jury. Until that time, they are entitled to bail. When public safety or justice requires it, of course the CPS resolutely objects to bail. We also have an independent judiciary in this country and we are very proud and pleased that we do, and the judiciary takes the decision as between public protection and the right of an unconvicted defendant. It cannot predict the future and cannot read minds, but it makes good rational judgments on a sensible basis. That is what has happened in all those cases.
	Let me make the following very clear to the hon. Gentleman. My right hon. Friend the Lord Chancellor —and the Ministry of Justice—has said that when the dust on those cases has settled, as it were, and if any issues are raised that require changes in the law, he will look to see whether they are necessary. I have no hesitation in saying, however, that the CPS tries very hard—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I must stop the Solicitor-General.

Keith Vaz: But the points raised by the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) need to be examined. Should the Solicitor-General not meet the Home Secretary and the Lord Chancellor to establish what further steps could be taken to analyse the results of the granting of bail? I think that is all that the House is asking. Let us look at what has happened, let us look at the impact on resources, and let us see whether any lessons can be learned from the procedure.

Vera Baird: As ever, my right hon. Friend has made a sensible suggestion. I meet the other two Justice Ministers frequently, as does my noble Friend the Attorney-General. As I have said, the Lord Chancellor is taking the lead on the issue, and I have no doubt that he will consult both the Attorney-General and the Home Secretary on any proposals that he concludes, having consulted us, are necessary following the changes that have taken place. However, as I have also said, the system is as it is.

David Howarth: I hope the Solicitor-General agrees that whatever changes are made, she should return to her original statement that the right to bail follows logically and inevitably from the presumption of innocence: the rule that we are all innocent until proven guilty. I hope she can assure us that the Government have no intention of following the route followed even in progressive countries such as Canada, where two thirds of prisoners are on remand, towards almost automatic remand for those accused of criminal offences.

Vera Baird: I think I have made the position very clear. Indeed, I have been criticised for making it extremely clear. The position is, as the hon. Gentleman says, that a person is presumed innocent until a jury decides that he is guilty, or he himself pleads guilty. At each stage, people are entitled to bail unless the public need to be protected from them, or there is a danger that they will interfere with witnesses or not turn up in court. Those criteria have served us well for 30 years. The cases that have been mentioned have caused us to look at the issue again, but that is all that we are doing—looking at it again.

Dominic Grieve: As the Solicitor-General will know, some of the cases that have caused public concern relate to the grant of bail by the Crown court. Others appear to relate to the grant of bail by the magistrates court. The power exists, and has existed for some time, for the Crown Prosecution Service to appeal to the Crown court against a mistaken grant of bail. Can the Solicitor-General assure us that the position will be investigated to establish whether there are cases in which, far from robustly opposing the grant of bail initially, the Crown Prosecution Service ought to consider appealing from the magistrates courts if bail has been granted?

Vera Baird: Yes. As the hon. Gentleman says, none of the cases that have given rise to concern are in the category of magistrates court cases on which an appeal could have been made. In all those cases, the decisions were made by senior and experienced judges in the Crown court. I am not aware of any anxiety about a failure to appeal against grant of bail in the magistrates court if the Crown Prosecution Service is apprised of the need to do so, but I take the hon. Gentleman's point, and I have no doubt that it can be addressed as part of the overall issue.

Terrorists (Detention)

Andrew MacKinlay: What representations the Attorney- General has received on the merits of detaining terrorist suspects for a limited period without charge.

Vera Baird: The Attorney-General has discussed the issue with the Director of Public Prosecutions, and she has received representations from one pressure group.

Andrew MacKinlay: I wonder whether the Solicitor-General could help a bewildered Back Bencher. Has she observed that the former Attorney-General has said that there is no case for keeping people in custody without charge for more than 28 days, and that that view has been echoed by her former ministerial friend Lord Falconer—the former Lord Chancellor—and, more important, by the existing Director of Public Prosecutions? Have all three of those learned gentlemen gone completely gaga, or are they telling us the naked truth?

Vera Baird: I have never seen any of them either gaga or naked. It seems that all the assertions have been that we do not need that change now, but it equally seems that everyone has agreed that it is very possible that an extension beyond 28 days will be needed before very long. The proposal is to legislate to provide an opportunity to extend the period if necessary.
	I want to make it very clear that there appears to be agreement across parties, as my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said yesterday. The issue is how this is done. In my view, the important thing is to have it under judicial control. This proposal would do that: it would put detention not into the hands of the Crown Prosecution Service or the police, but under judicial control, which is where it properly should be.

WOMEN AND EQUALITY

The Minister for Women and Equality was asked—

Discrimination

Jim Cunningham: What recent steps the Government have taken to reduce discrimination against women in the workplace.

Harriet Harman: Most women now work, and women now have equal educational qualifications to men, but women are still not equal at work. We have helped women in the workplace by tackling low pay, a problem that mostly affects women, through the national minimum wage and tax credits, and we have helped to balance work and family, a requirement which also mostly affects women, through better maternity pay and leave and flexible working, but there is more to do.

Jim Cunningham: I thank my right hon. and learned Friend for that answer, and I recognise that the Government have done a lot to combat discrimination against women, but is she aware that women sometimes still have to go to court to get equal pay? Can we do something about that?

Harriet Harman: We need to do more in respect of equal pay in the public and private sectors, and in local government. In that connection, my hon. Friend the Minister for Local Government has announced £500 million for capitalisation, to help local government on equal pay. We need fair pay and good local public services, and we can achieve both.

Mark Harper: The Minister for equalities will know that in the process of reducing discrimination against women it is important that the Government Equalities Office take a leading role. Can she tell the House when she will be able to appoint a permanent secretary?

Harriet Harman: What matters is that we get on with doing the job. My fellow Ministers and I are getting on with the work, and we are properly supported by our equality unit—and, actually, a new appointment has just been made.

Lynne Featherstone: I wonder whether the right hon. and learned Lady shares the concern I felt when I saw that the 10 most recently appointed judges announced by the new Judicial Appointments Commission were all men, and white men at that. Will she make urgent representations to the Secretary of State for Justice to look into why the new rules did not deliver the intended outcome?

Harriet Harman: This issue has been raised previously by Members not only in respect of judicial appointments, but public appointments in general. As I have told the House before, we all think it is unacceptable that there has been no increase in women's appointments to public office in the past 10 years. The independence of the Judicial Appointments Commission, and its target for increasing the number of women at the top level of the judiciary, has yet to bear fruit. I expect to meet the heads of the JAC and the Appointments Commission to see what further can be done soon.

Theresa May: As has already been said, one continuing form of discrimination against women in the workplace is the gender pay gap. Last night at the Fawcett Society reception to celebrate 90 years of women's suffrage, the right hon. and learned Lady reiterated her desire to do something about that, but also confirmed that we will not have an equalities Bill until the next Queen's Speech. The Government could act now on the gender pay gap by adopting my proposals. Why will she not do that?

Harriet Harman: We will have an equality Bill in the next Queen's Speech; that is when it was scheduled for. We want it to be a radical and effective Bill that makes a difference. I remind the right hon. Lady that Labour women have struggled over the decades to make a difference for women in this country, and that Conservative women have simply sided with Conservative men against that aim.

Women's Suffrage

Lynda Waltho: What plans the Government have to mark the 90th anniversary of women's suffrage.

Barbara Follett: The Ministers for women hosted a reception with the Fawcett Society on 6 February to mark the 90th anniversary of women's qualified suffrage. The event brought together about 200 parliamentarians, including the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May), and stakeholders from a wide range of sectors to celebrate the achievement of women's suffrage and to highlight the need for a more representative democracy. I was pleased that the Prime Minister said yesterday that the Government would consider erecting a statue in Parliament square to honour the suffragette movement; that would be the first statue of a woman in Parliament square.

Lynda Waltho: I thank my hon. Friend for that answer. Despite all the progress, there are still only 97 Labour, 17 Conservative and 9 Liberal Democrat women MPs, and the Fawcett Society estimates that it will take at least 200 years to get anywhere close to having 50:50 representation. All-women shortlists have helped in our case, but those provisions contains a sunset clause and are due to end. What more can we do to ensure that we get closer to having 50:50 representation in my lifetime, rather than in the lifetime of my great-granddaughters?

Barbara Follett: I thank my hon. Friend for that question and for her work in this vital matter. There is no doubt that the 98 Labour women MPs vastly outnumber the women on the Opposition Benches. I would like to see more on the Opposition Benches —[Interruption.] I said more, not enough, and that means some of the men have to move off those Benches.  [Interruption.] There is no point in getting into an argument about that. We need the Opposition parties to take the issue seriously and to put their votes where their mouths are. We will—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I want to call some more lady Members. Fiona Mactaggart.

Fiona Mactaggart: There is an area of public life where women's representation is even worse than it is in Parliament—local government. Following the Councillors Commission report, have the Ministers responsible for women and equality had any conversations with their colleagues in the Department for Communities and Local Government about what action will be taken to promote more women councillors, given that every piece of evidence shows that they are the most effective councillors in representing their communities?

Barbara Follett: This matter is very close to the Government's heart. We are doing what we can to increase the number of women councillors, in particular the number of black and Asian women councillors. We hosted the largest annual gathering in the Houses of Parliament for regional black and Asian ethnic minority women, which focused on the need for more women from different communities to become councillors; the Women Take Part campaign, which was launched by Ministers in October, is working on the same issue; and the Prime Minister has launched the National Muslim Women's Advisory Group. We are trying to ensure that more women come through in local government, because that is the seedcorn for Parliament.

Human Trafficking

Sharon Hodgson: What steps the Government are taking to deter advertising in local newspapers linked to the trafficking of girls and women for sex.

Barbara Follett: Last week, the Government published "Women Not for Sale", which examined the prevalence of this type of advertisement in local newspapers in England on one day last October. Following constructive meetings with representatives from the newspaper and advertising industries, the Newspaper Society has agreed to draw up tougher guidance on advertising for local newspapers.

Sharon Hodgson: I thank my hon. Friend for that answer. I wonder what plans the Government have to tackle the demand side of prostitution, given its links to the trafficking of girls and women for sex.

Barbara Follett: The Government believe that tackling the demand side is vital in fighting trafficking, as highlighted in the UK action plan that we published in March 2007. I visited Sweden with other Ministers to see how its legislation is tackling demand. Although we do not anticipate reviewing legislation, we are examining ways in which we can reduce demand.

Rape Crisis Centres

Angela Watkinson: What funding the Government are providing for rape crisis centres in the next two financial years.

Barbara Follett: The Government recognise the vital role played by voluntary and community sector rape crisis centres. Decisions on the victims' fund and funding for independent sexual violence advisers for the coming financial year will be announced by the relevant Departments in the near future.

Angela Watkinson: I thank the Minister for her reply and hope that we can conclude that there is some optimism about future funding. She will know that the reporting of violent sexual offences compounds the trauma that victims have already experienced, and it is extremely important that facilities are there to make it as easy as possible for victims. Of course, the police cannot take action unless the crime is reported. Will she take that on board when she is considering funding so that we can ensure that rape crisis centres have the funding to continue?

Barbara Follett: I thank the hon. Lady for those remarks, which I take on board. I am visiting rape crisis centres at present and we recognise that they face significant financial challenges. I would like to underline the fact that there has been no reduction in Government funding for sexual violence support services. This year, the Government will invest £3 million in support for victims of such crimes, including more than £1 million for rape crisis centres. We are core funding Rape Crisis England and Wales and the Survivors Trust. We are working with rape crisis centres to do what we can to ensure that they get the necessary funding.

Female Entrepreneurs

Henry Bellingham: What steps she is taking to encourage female entrepreneurs.

Barbara Follett: Women's entrepreneurship is a significant strand of enterprise development. The Government have established the taskforce on women's enterprise to accelerate the levels of female entrepreneurship. We are also committed to working with key partners, such as regional development agencies, to support further development of women's entrepreneurship. That includes a national network of 1,000 women's enterprise ambassadors.

Henry Bellingham: I am grateful to the Minister for that reply. Would she agree that one measure that would do untold damage to the cause of female entrepreneurship would be the implementation of the EU agency workers directive? Can she confirm that it is still her Government's intention to resist the directive?

Barbara Follett: That would not be its effect, and we do need to have protection for migrant workers.

Child Care

Tony Lloyd: If she will collate and publish information on access to nursery facilities as a means of encouraging women into work.

Hon. Members: Intermission!

Barbara Follett: I apologise to everyone for the delay in answering.
	We are supporting women who return to work by ensuring that they have access to good quality child care. The Government are working with local authorities and stakeholders to implement practical ways of increasing access to formal child care that will bring positive benefits to children and families. We have placed a new duty on local authorities in England to collate and publish information on child care sufficiency by March.

Tony Lloyd: My hon. Friend's answer was worth waiting for.  [ Interruption. ] The House is very slow this morning, Mr. Speaker. The need to collate information is absolutely vital in this area. We now know that among the biggest barriers to women returning to work is the lack of affordable and available child care. We also know that child care provision is patchy across the country, particularly in areas with Conservative councils. When the information is collated, will it be possible to bring some pressure to bear on the local authorities in areas of under-provision to ensure that women are given a proper chance to get back into work?

Barbara Follett: I thank my hon. Friend for his courtesy and apologise for my slowness. I congratulate Manchester City council on its work in that respect, which has helped many more women to get into work. The Government are providing substantial help, totalling £18.5 million a day, for working families through the working tax credit. We provide £3 million a day to help working families with 80 per cent. of their child care costs. A lot is being done and we hope to do a lot more. I hope that the relevant figures will be made available to my hon. Friend and to other hon. Members so that they can ensure that their constituents get the child care they need and deserve.

LEADER OF THE HOUSE

The Leader of the House was asked—

Topical Debates

Andrew MacKay: What assessment she has made of the effectiveness of topical debates.

Harriet Harman: I have issued a written ministerial statement today setting out a timetable for a review of topical debates and setting up a procedure for publishing subjects proposed by Members. I welcome comments from Members to that review.

Andrew MacKay: So, yet another review, from the Government of review, review, review: may I suggest to the Leader of the House that there is no need for a review this time? The public want topical debates so that we in the House are right up to date, but they do not want Government media stunts instead of topical debates.

Harriet Harman: The right hon. Gentleman criticises the proposed review, but we have to make decisions on important matters, such as the business of the House and issues that affect the lives of people outside it. To do that, we need the facts: we have to consult people and listen to what they say, and that means that we have to have a review. Doing things on the back of an envelope for the sake of a cheap headline is something that I shall leave to the Opposition.

Nigel Evans: To have more effective topical questions, can we double the time allotted to them and halve the amount of time allocated to Front-Bench Members in topical debates?

Harriet Harman: Topical questions have been working well, and we do not propose to review them at the moment. The topical debates have caused controversy but, as I said, I have issued a written ministerial statement about them this morning. I want to seek the views of hon. Members on all sides of the House so that we can discuss how to take matters forward. We will then make further proposals to the House.

Shailesh Vara: In her ministerial statement on topical debates, the Leader of the House says that she will publish a quarterly list of the subjects that have been proposed, but the Modernisation Committee has recommended that that list should be published every fortnight. Why has the right hon. and learned Lady gone for the longer option? In addition, will she publish the names of the people proposing the subjects? I am sure that it would be of considerable interest to the House to know whether a subject had been proposed by a Back Bencher with a genuine interest in it—or by, say, the Government Chief Whip, with an eye to his own media agenda.

Harriet Harman: I shall take those suggestions as a contribution to the review. I should point out that the subject for this afternoon's topical debate was chosen, not by the Chief Whip, but by the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May), who is sitting next to the hon. Gentleman.

HOUSE OF COMMONS COMMISSION

The hon. Member for North Devon, representing the House of Commons Commission, was asked—

BlackBerrys

Bob Spink: What recent representations he has received on the provision of BlackBerrys to hon. Members.

Nick Harvey: There has been one written parliamentary question about BlackBerrys, and the Parliamentary Information Communication and Technology department—PICT—has received one e-mail inquiry from an hon. Member on the matter in the past three months. At a recent ICT event in the atrium of Portcullis house, two hon. Members asked about the availability of BlackBerrys.

Bob Spink: I am grateful for that reply, and I acknowledge that this is not the most pressing issue before the House this week. I do not want to promote a particular brand of personal digital system, whatever that might be, but I believe that hon. Members should be given the maximum choice so that they can best serve their constituents. Will the matter be considered again?

Nick Harvey: I have some sympathy with the hon. Gentleman's remarks, but the provision of mobile computing services to the House was the subject of a full EU tender four or five years ago. I should explain that BlackBerrys are not marketed directly, and none of the companies bidding at the time offered a service for that product. Since then, the House has invested a good deal of time and money in Microsoft-based hand-held devices, but BlackBerrys operate on a completely different system. The result is that they would not be compatible with the infrastructure that we have developed.

Sharon Hodgson: As an avid BlackBerry user since 2005, I am rather surprised by the small amount of representation on their behalf that has been received. I do not want to endorse the use of any particular product in the House, but the personal digital assistant that I have received from PICT is not in the same league as a BlackBerry. I hope that PICT will not take the small number of representations on behalf of BlackBerrys to mean that hon. Members are not interested in them.

Nick Harvey: I have noted the hon. Lady's remarks and will convey them to PICT.

LEADER OF THE HOUSE

The Leader of the House was asked—

Voting Rights

Ann Winterton: What the Government's policy is on the right of hon. Members representing Scottish constituencies to vote on matters relating to England where responsibility for such matters in Scotland has been devolved.

Helen Goodman: As I said to the House on 13 December, the Prime Minister set out the Government's policy to the House on 3 July. The Government do not accept that there should be any discrimination in the right of hon. Members to take part in the business of the House. English votes for English laws would lead to the break up of the Union. The Government believe in the Union and will do nothing to harm it.

Ann Winterton: With a Scottish mother and an English father, I am understandably supportive of the union between Scotland and England. Why have the Government been so dilatory in coming forward with proposals to address the West Lothian question, and when will they address and end positive discrimination against the English, following their flawed devolution policy?

Helen Goodman: We have already taken forward significant policy changes on that issue by introducing devolution, and we are now looking at the accountability measures needed. All that the hon. Lady is doing is demonstrating that on this subject, as on others, she is completely out of step with not only Government policy but her own party leadership. I suggest that she read the speech given by the right hon. Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron) on 10 December, in which he said:
	"Better an imperfect union than a broken one."

Simon Hughes: May I say to the Deputy Leader of the House that the hon. Member for Congleton (Ann Winterton) is not out of step with the views of the British people on this issue? The Government appear to have a complete blind spot when it comes to acknowledging that further constitutional reform is needed. I put it to the Deputy Leader of the House that now that there is successful devolution in Belfast, Edinburgh and Cardiff, and the prospect of more, it is important that we consider how matters of purely English consequence are dealt with by English elected Members of Parliament, in a way that is compatible with fully supporting the United Kingdom.

Helen Goodman: The hon. Gentleman needs to take account of the great deal of work that is being done on the issue. As he knows, the Modernisation Committee is considering ways of improving regional accountability for England. I am glad that he indicates that he supports that. As for Wales, we already have a means of reviewing and, if agreed, amending the devolution settlement through the government of Wales mechanisms. Similarly, it has been agreed that there should be further devolution to Northern Ireland when the Assembly feels ready for it.

George Young: Does the hon. Lady not recognise that there is a lingering sense of injustice in England, following the constitutional resettlement giving Welsh and Scottish Members more independence? Will she at least allow the House a topical debate on the subject?

Helen Goodman: As the right hon. Gentleman knows, it is not for me to take receipt of requests for topical debates now. I remind him that 85 per cent. of Members of the House are English, and that secures the interests of English voters.

Select Committees

David Heathcoat-Amory: Whether she plans to bring forward proposals for changes to the Standing Orders governing the ability of Select Committees to meet in public.

Helen Goodman: The Government have no plans to change the Standing Orders for Select Committees generally. With respect to the European Scrutiny Committee, the matter is on the Order Paper for discussion this afternoon. I look forward to hearing the right hon. Gentleman's views then.

David Heathcoat-Amory: And I am sure that she will, but the issues of openness and the public's right to know are not on the Order Paper. Is the hon. Lady aware that in the Committee's routine weekly meetings, it has to meet in private? It scrutinises more than 1,000 draft regulations, directives and laws from the European Union every year, but the public and the press are not admitted. Will she alter that in line with the Government's pretended belief in openness and the public's right to know?

Helen Goodman: As the right hon. Gentleman knows, I have twice attended the European Scrutiny Committee recently and I am perfectly well aware of the situation. Everybody in the House believes that we should conduct proceedings transparently whenever possible, but that is not the same as holding every single meeting under the glare of publicity. The right hon. Gentleman knows as well as I do that his Committee has taken contradictory positions when it has looked at the matter.

Parliamentary Questions

Andrew MacKinlay: What plans she has to review procedures relating to parliamentary questions.

Helen Goodman: From the beginning of the current Session the House agreed an experiment for a period of topical questions at the end of each of the main departmental question times. This will be reviewed at the end of the current Session. The Government have no further plans for review of procedures relating to parliamentary questions, but we await with interest the report in due course from the Procedure Committee on written questions.

Andrew MacKinlay: It is on written questions that I want to probe the Minister. I welcome the changes that mean we can table questions during the parliamentary recess, but why can we not table written questions during the entire recess just as we do on any other day? By what logic is it that if we table a written question in the recess just after the tabled cycle has been answered, it stays in a box for some weeks until the next cycle comes up? Why can it not be processed through to the Department to which the question was addressed? The situation is crazy.

Helen Goodman: Once again, my hon. Friend demonstrates his fantastic grasp of House procedure. His suggestion can be looked at further by the Procedure Committee, if not by the Government.

HOUSE OF COMMONS COMMISSION

The hon. Member for North Devon, representing the House of Commons Commission, was asked—

Visitors Reception Building

Norman Baker: How much the House of Commons Visitors Reception Building was originally estimated to cost; and how much it is now estimated to cost.

Nick Harvey: The original estimate in the business case was £8.6 million. Taking into account the delay and remedial work the cost is now estimated at £11.2 million. Professional fees for completing the project and reviewing the lessons learned about what went wrong may add about another £1 million. Additional equipment in the new building will cost about £250,000. The split between the Commons and the Lords is 60:40.

Norman Baker: I am increasingly concerned about what appears to be the inability of the House of Commons Commission to manage projects within time and within budget. I remind my hon. Friend of the walkway downstairs, which cost £422,000 for a bit of glass on stilts. Is it not time that there was proper economic management of the House of Commons Commission so that the public could have confidence that public money is being properly looked after in this place?

Nick Harvey: There have been a series of problems with the project. Initially, piling and hidden services were found beneath the site and later there were a number of technical problems with the building itself, both of which led to delays and to the remedial works that were needed, and have added to the cost. Last summer, a recovery manager was brought in to ensure the completion of the project and he has now been engaged to make a study of what went wrong. With respect to my hon. Friend, I think he may be leaping to conclusions about where responsibility lies, but we look forward to receiving the report of the expert recovery manager in due course.

LEADER OF THE HOUSE

The Leader of the House was asked—

Governance of Britain White Paper

Graham Allen: What steps she is taking to encourage public debate on those elements of the Governance of Britain White Paper which fall within her remit; and if she will make a statement.

Helen Goodman: The Leader of the House has an interest in a range of issues under the governance of Britain programme, with a particular responsibility for the proposals relating to the draft legislative programme, the dissolution and recall of Parliament, departmental debate days and regional accountability in the House. Those are all being considered in inquiries by the Modernisation Committee, chaired by my right hon. and learned Friend the Leader of the House, to which public contributions have been invited.

Graham Allen: The effort to revive our democracy was given a starburst opening when the Prime Minister chose to make his first speech to Parliament as Prime Minister on the governance of Britain and to produce a Green Paper within days of taking over as Prime Minister. Does my hon. Friend agree that a little bit of the excitement, passion and drive may have gone out of the agenda? Can we not involve millions of people in debate on the issues, rather than just those of us in the asylum, so that we can take them further and get more and more people involved in moving our democracy forward?

Helen Goodman: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his attempts to bring more excitement to the issue. The Leader of the House published the draft legislative programme and put it on the Cabinet Office website. Regional Ministers held meetings to discuss it and a national deliberative forum was held. The programme is being taken forward across the board.

Business of the House

Theresa May: May I ask the Leader of the House to give us the forthcoming business?

Harriet Harman: The business for the week commencing 18 February will be:
	Monday 18 February—Remaining stages of the Health and Social Care Bill.
	Tuesday 19 February—Debate on the treaty of Lisbon provisions relating to foreign, security and defence policy, followed by continuation of consideration in Committee of the European Union (Amendment) Bill [5th Allotted Day]—any selected amendments to clause 2 relating to foreign, security and defence policy, followed by motion to approve a local government restructuring order relating to Shropshire.
	Wednesday 20 February—Debate on the treaty of Lisbon provisions relating to international development, followed by continuation of consideration in Committee of the European Union (Amendment) Bill [6th( )Allotted Day]—any selected amendments to clause 2 relating to international development.
	Thursday 21 February— Topical debate: subject to be announced, followed by motion to approve the draft Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005 (Continuance in force of sections 1 to 9) Order 2008, followed by motion to approve the draft Social Security Benefits Up-rating Order 2008 and the draft Guaranteed Minimum Pensions Increase Order 2008.
	Friday 22 February—Private Members' Bills.
	The provisional business for the week commencing 25 February will include:
	Monday 25 February—Debate on the treaty of Lisbon provisions relating to the effectiveness of the EU institutions and EU decision making, followed by continuation of consideration in Committee of the European Union (Amendment) Bill [7th Allotted Day]—any selected amendments to clause 2 relating to the effectiveness of the EU institutions and EU decision making.
	Tuesday 26 February—Debate on the treaty of Lisbon provisions relating to climate change, followed by continuation of consideration in Committee of the European Union (Amendment) Bill [8th Allotted Day]—any selected amendments to clause 2 relating to climate change, followed by motion to approve a local government restructuring order.
	Wednesday 27 February—Continuation of consideration in Committee of the European Union (Amendment) Bill [9th Allotted Day] covering clauses 3 to 7.
	Thursday 28 February—A debate on Welsh affairs.
	Friday 29 february—Private Members' Bills.

Theresa May: I thank the Leader of the House for giving us the forthcoming business.
	The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill has been the subject of intense debate in another place and raises ethical questions on which opinions are sharply divided. Last week the right hon. and learned Lady said:
	"I intend to ensure that we have sufficient time for a serious and good debate on that important measure in this House."—[ Official Report, 31 January 2008; Vol. 471, c. 478.]
	Will she make a statement to the House immediately after the recess on how the Government intend to handle that Bill?
	This morning it was announced in the media that the Prime Minister had axed plans for a super-casino in Manchester, but yet again no announcement has been made to the House. When will the Prime Minister make a statement to the House on the matter? Every week the Leader of the House tells us that she puts Parliament first, but every week her colleagues from the Prime Minister down show their disdain for Parliament.
	The Prime Minister consistently brags about his tax credit system, yet the latest report by the Public Accounts Committee said that losses to fraud and overpayments in the system were a "great cause for concern". Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs has written off £2.3 billion in overpayments, often made because of its own errors, 2 million families a year are still struggling to pay back overpayments, and on top of that, HMRC has lost the personal details of 25 million tax credit claimants. May we have a debate in Government time on the failures of HMRC?
	This morning, it was confirmed that £24 billion of Northern Rock debt is being moved on to the Treasury's balance sheet. That comes on top of the £35 billion of debt from housing associations being put on to the Treasury's balance sheet due to an incompetence by the Government in the drafting of the Housing and Regeneration Bill. We also know that another of the Prime Minister's blunders—the failure of the public-private partnership scheme for the tube—will cost the taxpayer at least £2 billion. A further £55 billion of debt is off the public balance sheet in private finance initiative schemes. How much of that will now have to be put on to the Treasury's balance sheet, and will the Chancellor make a statement to the House on how much the Government's economic incompetence is costing the British taxpayer?
	Perhaps the Prime Minister has other things on his mind. It is reported that Downing street is encouraging Tony Blair as he decides whether to stand as president of the European Union. Will the right hon. and learned Lady confirm that Tony Blair is the Government's preferred candidate, and can we have a statement on the matter from the Prime Minister? From tube privatisation, to HMRC, to Tony Blair: are those not just examples of the Prime Minister's chickens coming home to roost? Blunders, indecision and incompetence—little wonder that, according to the  Financial Times, No.10 has become so chaotic that insiders have begun to describe the Prime Minister as being at the helm of the GST, otherwise known as the good ship Titanic. The Government are sinking, and sinking fast, but it is the British people who are suffering.

Harriet Harman: If we can return to the real world for a moment, let me say that we will announce the business on the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill in the usual way. It is an important Bill, which has had good consideration in the Lords. The House of Lords has deliberated at length on a number of ethical issues. Similarly, this House will want to scrutinise the Bill.
	The Prime Minister told the House that he was going to initiate a review on casinos so that the original decisions could be reconsidered. The devolved Administrations have been consulted. No announcement has been made; when a decision has been taken, an announcement will be made to the House.
	On tax credits, the information mentioned by the right hon. Lady is of some years' standing. Since then, the issues that arose on the back of the report have been addressed and the system has been simplified. Tax credits have made a great difference to hundreds of thousands of families up and down the country. The Government's policy is to back up hard-working families bringing up children and ensure that they have a better standard of living. The tax credit system plays an important part in that.
	The right hon. Lady mentioned Northern Rock. I remind her and the House that the Chancellor has kept the House informed on that matter and will continue to do so. Our principles are that we should ensure stability in the financial system. We have to ensure that those with savings and mortgages at Northern Rock are reassured that their money is safe, and that those working at the bank do not face too much insecurity. Those are our objectives and we will do whatever we can to achieve them.
	The right hon. Lady mentioned the Housing and Regeneration Bill. Its objective is for us to have more housing, particularly housing that is affordable to rent or buy. The right hon. Lady always has objections to any public investment in things that help people—especially those at the bottom of society, who need housing. I am sorry that she is nit-picking about that issue. Similarly, she is picking holes in the finance system of the underground. We have said that for the strengthening of the economy, we want investment in people, industry and infrastructure—that includes London's transport infrastructure, which includes the underground. That investment will go in and help London's passengers and economy. It will continue.
	The right hon. Lady talks about economic incompetence. She should recognise that we have the highest growth rates, the lowest inflation and the highest levels of employment that we have had for years, and that is the real world that we are going to continue in.
	The right hon. Lady asks about the EU presidency. I would say that when leading British politicians play a role in Europe, whether they are Chris Patten, Leon Brittan, Paddy Ashdown, Roy Jenkins or Neil Kinnock, they make a big difference. If British politicians can play a leading role in Europe, that is good for Britain as well as good for Europe.

George Howarth: The Leader of the House is aware that you, Mr. Speaker, and the Members Estimate Committee have been given the major responsibility of bringing the issue of allowances, and that of transparency, to a satisfactory conclusion. Will she give an absolute undertaking to the House that whatever resources are needed to complete that work will be made available?

Harriet Harman: I will give that undertaking to the House. I think that the whole House will regard this review as very important indeed. The public need to have confidence in the structure and policing of the system, and hon. Members will want to be sure that we can command public confidence in that respect.

Simon Hughes: The right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May) reminded us, and the Leader of the House responded, that we are about to start the process of debate on the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill. In addition to a very careful decision as to how we proceed, may I ask the Leader of the House to consider whether some of the Committee stage can be taken on the Floor of the House on those matters that I am sure we can discuss and identify across parties as being of wider general concern? Will she talk with her colleagues at the other end of the building about whether it is time to have a joint Committee of both Houses on bioethics, on a standing basis, which will reflect some of the strong views expressed in the House of Lords during the recent debates?
	As the Leader of the House will know, today is Chinese new year, but surprisingly the House has not had a debate on UK-China relations for a considerable time. Given the large number of Chinese people living and working in the UK, will she consider whether that is a possible topic for debate after we come back for the second half of term?
	The Leader of the House will realise from this week's comments that there is great concern in relation to the Government's Counter-Terrorism Bill. The concern is that a little part has been slipped in dealing with coroners' inquests, particularly those that take place in private. Will she come back to us after the recess and tell us whether they can reconsider that matter so that coroners' matters and inquests can be debated in the context that she wants, namely a new Bill on coroners' matters and inquests, rather than by trying to slip into the Counter-Terrorism Bill an unsatisfactory and secretive proposal on inquests?
	In relation to the much wider concern at the moment about the nature of authoritarian imposition by the Government on the citizen, we have not had a debate on the surveillance state for a very long time. There is considerable concern, not just about Members of Parliament appearing to be followed and having their activities monitored illegally, but about DNA and fingerprints being held and children's records being kept. May we have, in prime time, a debate to allow the House to express its view that the Government are going too far in seeking powers over the citizen and that we need to roll back the powers of the state, not increase them?

Harriet Harman: The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill is not a party political matter but a matter of concern across the parties, on Front Benches and Back Benches alike. We will have to have discussions to ensure that when I announce that business to the House it is regarded as satisfactory in terms of debate on this important issue.
	The hon. Gentleman suggested the Chinese new year as the subject of a topical debate. I thank him for that suggestion. He also referred to the provisions dealing with coroners' inquests that involve matters of national security, and he said that we had gone about introducing them secretively. I say to him that we have published those provisions as clauses in the Counter-Terrorism Bill, so it is not a question of something being "slipped in". They have been published in a Bill. I do not need to come back after the recess to tell him this; I can tell him right away. When material relating to national security is brought in as evidence in the criminal and civil courts, the court sometimes has to sit in camera. That is the case in those courts, and the clauses in the Bill simply bring the coroners' courts in line with the situation that currently obtains, and which he no doubt supports, in civil and criminal courts.
	The hon. Gentleman asked why we have not debated the surveillance state. I would say that we do not have a surveillance state, so we do not need to debate it.  [ Interruption. ] We had a statement from the Ministry of Justice on Monday relating to surveillance. On Wednesday, we had a further statement pertaining to surveillance, read by the Prime Minister. The hon. Gentleman talks about the extension of what he regards as the invasion of people's civil liberties by the state, but would he say the same thing to rape victims who have seen perpetrators of rape brought to justice, in a way that they never could have been in the past, because of the collection of DNA? Our purpose in Government is to keep people safe, which is why we take the measures we do on surveillance and security. Our purpose is also to bring offenders to justice, which is why we take the measures we take on DNA and fingerprints. I hope that he would agree with that action.

Peter Kilfoyle: Further to the issue raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Knowsley, North and Sefton, East (Mr. Howarth), I wonder whether the Leader of the House would find time for a Government statement expressing full support for the root-and-branch review being undertaken under the leadership of Mr. Speaker? Could that statement include support for inclusion in the review of a reappraisal of the register of journalists' interests?

Harriet Harman: I strongly welcome my hon. Friend's statements, and I am sure that the whole House will.

Bob Spink: May we have an early debate on the structure of the review on Members' allowances? We will not regain public confidence unless that review is undertaken by a totally independent body.

Harriet Harman: I think that the public could be forgiven for finding the current situation very complex. We have the Committee on Standards in Public Life, which is independent; the Standards and Privileges Committee, which is a Committee of this House but is supported by an independent commissioner; the National Audit Office reporting to the Public Accounts Committee, which is a Committee of this House; the Public Administration Committee; and the Register of Members' interests. Every time there has been a problem, we have bolted on a new bit of machinery.
	We now have chronic hybridity, with some issues being dealt with by this House, and some by independent elements. The public are unable to see the clear picture that they need. They need to be able to see that public money is properly spent according to clear rules, and if those rules are breached, they must see that people are held to account and that the money is paid back. The review led by Mr. Speaker will consider such matters. We will have a review in the right sense of the word: we will think about the matter, deliberate on it, examine the evidence and then get to the right solution.

Several hon. Members: rose —

Mr. Speaker: I had better call the hon. Member for Warrington, South (Helen Southworth). She seems very impatient to be called.

Helen Southworth: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
	Can we find time for a debate about the most effective methods of reducing reoffending among 15 to 18-year-olds who receive a custodial sentence, particularly in view of the Youth Justice Board's decision to withdraw funding from Thorn Cross young offenders institute? At the institute, which is in my constituency, people can currently get vocational qualifications, join the fire cadet service with Cheshire fire service and get music tuition from the Hallé orchestra. A debt is repaid to the community with the help of local voluntary organisations, but most importantly, there are activities on offer to address offending behaviour. From April, there will only be enclosed institutions with none of the resources to do those things.

Harriet Harman: My hon. Friend makes an important point about Thorn Cross young offenders institution. It must be a priority that young offenders are not only punished, but rehabilitated when they come out of institutions so that they are able to get on the straight and narrow. I shall bring her comments to the attention of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Justice.

Mark Hunter: In recent weeks, Members of all parties have raised genuine concerns about the post office closure programme, which the Leader of the House accepted is a sensitive issue. In my constituency, it is so sensitive that the whole network change programme consultation has had to be postponed, apparently under the instructions of the Government. The Post Office has written to postmasters and postmistresses, delaying the consultation until after the local elections. Will the Leader of the House please reconsider a request that has been made several times for a debate in Government time on the genuine concerns that exist in our communities about this important issue?

Mr. Speaker: Before the Leader of the House answers, let me say that I want to call all hon. and right hon. Members standing, but I have to get briefer supplementaries than we have had so far.

Harriet Harman: I shall try to aim for briefer answers, Mr. Speaker.
	The Minister for Employment Relations and Postal Affairs in the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform gave evidence on this issue to the Select Committee a couple of days ago. The Committee will report on the issue and there will be further debate in this House in future.

James McGovern: May we have a debate on the standards and costings of election promises? Prior to the Scottish elections last May, the people were presented with an uncosted fantasy manifesto, which has led to an unprecedented number of about-turns and broken promises. Does the Leader of the House agree that treating our electorate with such contempt only furthers public mistrust of politics, politicians and the political process?

Harriet Harman: My hon. Friend makes an important point on behalf of his constituents. He wants to ensure that they have the services they need, and that they are not subject to broken promises or a postcode lottery by the Scottish Executive.

Robert Key: Please may we have a debate on the accountability of English Heritage to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and this House? The current funding crisis involves Salisbury, Canterbury, Durham and Lichfield cathedrals and concerns the best way to conserve mediaeval stone. It has been described by Sir Hayden Phillips, a distinguished former permanent secretary at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and the Lord Chancellor's Department, as
	"falling short of the best standards of public administration in the decision-making process".
	That is a very serious matter, and this House should discuss it.

Harriet Harman: I will draw the attention of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport to the hon. Gentleman's comments, and I will ask my right hon. Friend to write to him.

John Spellar: May I thank the Leader of the House for selecting Holocaust memorial day as a subject for topical debate last week? I am sure that she will have been impressed by the attendance and quality of contributions in that debate. Will she ascertain through the usual channels whether a debate on this important topic could become a scheduled annual event? That would be widely appreciated in the House and elsewhere.

Harriet Harman: The topical debate on Holocaust memorial day was a good example of the role that can be played by such debates. I congratulate all Members who took part and I will certainly consider my right hon. Friend's suggestion.

Peter Lilley: The Leader of the House will be aware of the long-standing convention observed by all previous Governments that to inform debates in this House, Ministers place on the Table documents relating to policies under debate. Surely, therefore, they should place on the Table the positions taken by Ministers in respect of clauses debated on the European convention on the constitution, which are mirrored word for word in the current legislation on the Lisbon treaty. Yet they have refused to do so. Surely they cannot be arguing that this is a matter of national security, as this information is available to every Government in Europe, although it is not available to Members of this House. She cannot say that it is not related to the debate, because it has been debated repeatedly by those few Members who do have access to the documents. Will she at least think about whether those documents should be placed on the Table to inform the rest of the debate on this constitutional treaty?

Harriet Harman: We obviously want the debate to be as well informed as possible, with all the appropriate supporting documentary evidence. That is certainly the position of Ministers in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and I am sure that that will happen.

Julie Morgan: When may we have a debate on women in prison so that we can discuss the recommendations of the Corston review? I am sure that my right hon. and learned Friend knows that, last week, the English children's commissioner produced a report on mothers in prison, showing the damaging effect of that on young children. Could that be a subject for a topical debate?

Harriet Harman: That is a good suggestion for a topical debate and I thank my hon. Friend for it. Today the House of Lords will hear a debate, led by Baroness Corston, about women in prison. I believe that we can ensure that more women are prevented from offending and reoffending. We can also ensure that more women have effective non-custodial sentences and that, when they have to be put in prison, they are in prisons nearer their families and more is done to rehabilitate them.

Nicholas Winterton: Will the Leader of the House find Government time or grant a topical debate on family courts, where it is increasingly apparent that natural parents have no rights and they are denied even the transcripts to enable them best to represent the interests of their case and their natural children?

Harriet Harman: The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. There is a concerning lack of transparency in the family courts, which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Justice is examining. We need to be sure that the privacy of children and families is protected, and that justice is done and seen to be done. I emphasise that topical debates happen in Government time.

Paul Flynn: President Karzai has blamed British troops for the increased suffering of his people in Helmand province. He has rejected the UK Government's advice on the expulsion of diplomats and on the appointment of a UN envoy. Until we went to Helmand province, only seven of our brave British soldiers had died. The total is now 87. Should not we have a debate before we order our troops to put their lives at risk for the ungrateful, misguided Karzai Government?

Harriet Harman: I think that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister tackled that in Prime Minister's questions yesterday, and it is constantly the subject of debate and discussion in oral questions and Committees of the House.

Lee Scott: Will the Leader of the House please consider a debate on consultancies awarding contracts in the national health service, in the light of the fact that two previous chief executives from NHS trusts, including mine—Barking, Havering and Redbridge—who received large pay-offs, leaving their trusts with a deficit of £39.9 million, have now set up a business to advise the NHS on how to run hospitals? Surely that should be called "Not Fit for the Future".

Harriet Harman: I will bring the hon. Gentleman's point to the attention of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health. Everyone wants the resources that go into the health service to be used for care and support for those who need it and those who work on the front line, caring for patients.

Jim Sheridan: May we have a debate on publicly funded bodies, such as the Committee on Standards in Public Life, the members of which are well rewarded? My constituent received a letter and visit from that organisation and was offered a £10 gift voucher to take part in a survey of standards in public life,
	"Even if you don't feel you know much about the subject".
	Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that that is a waste of taxpayers' money and should be investigated?

Harriet Harman: I hesitate to say anything about the Committee on Standards in Public Life because it is independent and has to be allowed to do its work independently. However, I am not sure that we need to give £10 gift vouchers to members of the public to know that we must get on with our work and ensure that the public have confidence in the way in which the House goes about its business.

Tim Boswell: Will the right hon. and learned Lady ensure that we urgently revisit the security of electoral registration in view of the Council of Europe's highly critical report? Do she and her fellow Ministers have the faintest idea of the implications for the UK's reputation if we fall into the monitoring process?

Harriet Harman: I think that there are two electoral registration problems: people who register when they are not eligible to do so or are falsely registered to rig the vote, and the millions of people who are not entitled to vote and disfranchised because they are not registered to vote. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Justice is examining the matter. We need to be sure that our electoral register is both secure and complete. We cannot continue with a position whereby between 3 million and 4 million people who are eligible to vote cannot do so because they are not on the electoral register.

Claire Curtis-Thomas: Every day, my constituents have to endure thousands of belching vehicles travelling through the constituency, which has some of the highest asthma rates in the country. Last week, the Mayor introduced a low emissions zone in London and it will save thousands of lives. Will the Leader of the House kindly make time to discuss that important initiative and the way in which it can be introduced in places such as Sefton so that we, too, can save lives?

Harriet Harman: I thank my hon. Friend for bringing to the House's attention the question of how we ensure that people who have asthma or other respiratory problems are protected from traffic emissions. I join her in congratulating the Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, on introducing the pioneering low emissions zone. I know that it will be considered in other cities throughout the country to ascertain whether they can do the same.

James Clappison: May we find time for a debate on the position of UK nationals facing trial overseas, with particular reference to the case of Mr. Simon Mann? We should do what we can to ensure that they have access to lawyers, that they are brought before a judge and that they have full access to this country's consular facilities, and when appropriate, if there is a shortage of such facilities, to those of friendly countries such as the United States.

Harriet Harman: I think that that is the current arrangement. The hon. Gentleman is right to pay tribute to the consular facilities in countries where British citizens find themselves in difficulty. They are a lifeline. I am sure that what he proposes is already under way, but I will ask my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary to write to him to confirm that that is the case.

Mark Hendrick: Will my right hon. and learned Friend consider holding a debate on employment law, especially the gross misuse and abuse of grievance procedures, particularly by North West Transport Supplies Ltd at Moss Side in Leyland, which has abused one of my constituents, Mr. Glyne Greenidge, in a terrible way?

Harriet Harman: I will look into my hon. Friend's point. Nobody wants grievance procedures to be misused.

Stewart Jackson: Twenty-six per cent. of young people in my constituency are not in employment, education or training. We learned this week the shocking statistics that 75 per cent. of young people in social housing are on benefit, and more than 50 per cent. of all age groups in social housing and on benefit, are in workless households. May we have an urgent debate on the Government's record on welfare dependency and their abysmal failure to deliver social mobility in the past 11 years?

Harriet Harman: There are now more jobs in the economy. The problem when we came into government was too few jobs. Now, there are 600 vacancies— [Interruption.]—600,000 vacancies across the economy. That is why we have been able to move forward with our welfare-to-work programme so that there is work for those who can as well as security for those who cannot. More lone parents are in work and more people are coming off incapacity benefit into work. We are ensuring that young people in particular have the skills and qualifications to take up the increased number of jobs that are now available.

David Winnick: Arising from what my right hon. and learned Friend has said a number of times today, does she understand the point, which is often made outside this place as well as by hon. Members, that there needs to be public confidence about the allowance system? I am afraid that that confidence is currently lacking. Although I recognise the measures that have so far been taken, it was only a short time ago that attempts were made to exempt Parliament from the Freedom of Information Act. In those circumstances, there is bound to be a suspicion that what is happening is a clublike investigation that will not lead to real reform.

Harriet Harman: The public are understandably angry about the facts that were revealed in the case of the hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Derek Conway). However, hon. Members are every bit as angry, because that case has cast a stain over us all and over the institution of Parliament. All the members of the Members Estimate Committee are fully aware of the situation and determined that we should come up with proposals, under the leadership of the Speaker, that fully restore public confidence and are clear, straightforward and transparent. That is what the House asked the Speaker to do when we debated hon. Members' pay some weeks ago, and his Members Estimate Committee will be getting on with it.

Ian Liddell-Grainger: The right hon. and learned Lady is aware that the Government are conducting a review of the starring system for unitary authorities and counties, which is taking an inordinate amount of time to complete. Somerset lost a recent British Dyslexia Association standard, but it is hiding behind the starring system, saying, "We're a four-star council, so we're okay." Will the Government please get the situation sorted out as quickly as possible, so that there is a proper system for marking counties and unitaries—I have no problems with that—in a transparent way that is understandable to members of the public?

Harriet Harman: That is a point that the hon. Gentleman might want to raise in oral questions or in a written question to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government.

Jon Trickett: There is real concern in my constituency and elsewhere about the corporate strategy of Redcats, a large local employer of female labour in particular. It is likely that there will be hundreds of redundancies. On behalf of myself and my hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield (Mary Creagh), who cannot be here today, may I press my right hon. and learned Friend to arrange for a statement indicating that the Government will seek to persuade Redcats not to make so many people unemployed, but that if that transpires, the Government will make local agencies available to assist people in finding new work? Otherwise, real devastation will be inflicted on those communities.

Harriet Harman: This is obviously an important issue for families in my hon. Friend's constituency. I will ask my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform to look into Redcats and at what can be done. I will also ensure that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government works with the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform to ensure that local agencies rally round and ensure a future for people currently working in that company, should things take a turn for the worse.

Pete Wishart: I support the calls for a debate on good governance across the constituent parts of the United Kingdom. In that debate, the right hon. and learned Lady might want to congratulate the Scottish National party Government on their historic first budget, passed yesterday—a budget that will freeze council tax, abolish prescription charges and increase police numbers and teachers. Perhaps she will also have a word of advice for her hapless Labour colleagues, who were ritually humiliated yesterday, albeit not by us, but by themselves, demonstrating that they are just as pathetic in opposition as they are in government.

Harriet Harman: We are dealing with the business of the House. As I cannot immediately detect the business element to that question, I shall just have to say: pass.

Peter Soulsby: In response to an earlier question the Leader of the House referred to the Select Committee inquiry into the post office closure programme. Given the concern about that programme in all parts of the House, will she ensure that we will have an opportunity to debate the Committee's report on the Floor of the House? Will she also ensure that I have an opportunity to talk about the total disregard for the widespread representations made about the closure of the Walnut Street and Francis Street post offices in my constituency, the sham consultation and the abject failure of Postwatch to represent the interests of residential and business users?

Harriet Harman: When the Select Committee reports, it will be topical to discuss the post office closure programme, which might be a good subject for a topical debate. During that debate my hon. Friend will have a further opportunity to raise his constituents' concerns about the Walnut Street and Francis Street post offices.

Julian Lewis: My constituent, Mr. Simon Mann, has completed his jail sentence in Zimbabwe but has been transferred by the Mugabe regime to a potentially terrible fate in Equatorial Guinea, despite the fact that his appeals processes have not been completed and despite the assurances given to the British ambassador to Zimbabwe that that would not happen. May we have a statement as soon as possible on the Floor of the House from the Foreign Secretary about what action is going to be taken? Quiet diplomacy has failed and we now have to save Mr. Mann, whatever he has or has not done, from torture and a horrible death in a terrible situation.

Harriet Harman: I will bring the matter to the attention of my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary and ask him to write to the hon. Gentleman.

Stephen Ladyman: I do not know whether my right hon. and learned Friend has visited a bookmaker recently, but if she has, she will have noticed that many are exploiting an unintended loophole in the Gambling Act 2005, by installing up to four machines, each of which can take a stake on a single play of £100. Such machines are distorting the market for coin-operated machines so much that they are even affecting the seaside arcade industry and threatening jobs where machines are manufactured in my constituency. I have applied for an Adjournment debate on the subject, but perhaps it deserves a wider debate in the House.

Harriet Harman: My hon. Friend makes two important points on behalf of his constituency. One is about gambling and the other is about the future of seaside towns. The future of seaside towns, including the amusements available, is perhaps something that we should consider for a topical debate when it gets a bit warmer.

Andrew Dismore: It is an awful long time since we had a debate on policing in London. Will my right hon. and learned Friend consider having a topical debate on policing in London, so that we can explore the recent Metropolitan police statistics, which show a significant fall in crime to its lowest level in nine years, with knife crime down 13 per cent. and an increase in offenders brought to justice? Such a debate would also be an opportunity to explore the London Mayor's record in providing 10,000 extra police officers and police community support officers and his pledge for an extra 1,000, which contrasts with the Conservative candidate's policy of cuts in the police budget.

Harriet Harman: I will take that as a proposal for a topical debate, because the issue will become increasingly topical as we approach 1 April, when neighbourhood policing will be introduced in all areas in London. That is something that Londoners want. The work that those teams will do could well be the subject for a topical debate, which could include the absolute support of the Labour Mayor and the Labour Government for ensuring extra policing and the resistance to that from a number of Conservatives.

Philip Davies: May we have a debate on public sector pay, during which the Government will be able to explain to the House why giving 475,000 teachers a 2.45 per cent. pay rise will control inflation, but giving 140,000 police officers a 2.5 per cent. pay rise will create rampant inflation?

Harriet Harman: What the hon. Gentleman has done is transpose percentage increase figures from different years. We want to be sure that we can negotiate three-year pay deals, so in the year April 2007 to April 2008 all pay agreements had to be kept to 1.9 per cent. As well as properly rewarding important public sector workers, we are going to make absolutely sure that inflation and interest rates are kept low.

David Taylor: In three days' time, Churches and other religious organisations will be supporting an international day of prayer for those with autism and Asperger's syndrome. Will the Leader of the House take this as a bid for a topical debate on the issue, which affects hundreds of thousands of people throughout the country? The conditions are under-recognised and under-resourced and they badly need a national strategy, a national taskforce and a well resourced plan for the future.

Harriet Harman: My hon. Friend makes an important point. For many years, families have struggled to support and care for children with autism, often to a great extent on their own and without the proper back-up of integrated services. There is now a great deal more awareness of the difficulties of autism and Asperger's syndrome, and a recognition of the importance of early diagnosis and integrated services. I congratulate the Churches on picking this for an international day of prayer, and we would like to work with the Churches, local government and the voluntary sector to ensure that families with a family member who develops autism or Asperger's have the backing that they need in future.

Andrew MacKay: As today's important announcement—made outside the House—that the Treasury would take on £24 billion of Northern Rock debt effectively amounts to nationalisation, how come the Chancellor has not come to the Dispatch Box to make a statement? Will the Leader of the House guarantee to us that he will come tomorrow?

Harriet Harman: The Chancellor of the Exchequer has made regular statements on Northern Rock. He has also made clear the principles with which he is approaching the matter, which involve giving priority to financial stability and security for those whose savings are invested in Northern Rock. The right hon. Gentleman and others ask for ever more statements. The Chancellor has said that when he has something to announce on Northern Rock, he will come to the House to announce it. Whenever he does so, however, the one thing that is always absent is any sign of a clear alternative strategy from the Opposition.

Madeleine Moon: May we have a topical debate on the irresponsible and inaccurate reporting of the media and, in particular, their failure to follow the Samaritans' guidelines when reporting suicides? My Bridgend community has been called a "death town", a "suicide town" and a "suicide cult town". I have had researchers purporting to be from the BBC "Ten o'clock news" asking for details of the parents and families of those who have died, so that they can interview them. That is irresponsible reporting. May we have a debate on that matter?

Harriet Harman: I think that we would all wish to express our sympathy and condolences to the families who have lost young people through suicide in this tragic situation in my hon. Friend's constituency. I know that there is great concern among parents that the press reporting is making the situation more dangerous for young people. Instead of informing them of where to turn, it is simply whipping up fear. I know that my hon. Friend feels angry and aggrieved on behalf of her constituents, and that she is taking things forward herself. I am sure that what she has done by raising the question of the guidelines will go a long way towards ensuring that they are enforced, as she rightly demands.

John Whittingdale: I strongly support the requests of my hon. Friends the Members for Hertsmere (Mr. Clappison) and for New Forest, East (Dr. Lewis). Whatever Simon Mann may have done, or not done, does the Leader of the House accept that he is entitled to reasonable treatment and fair legal representation? There is real concern that he will get neither of those in Equatorial Guinea. Will she try to arrange an opportunity for the Foreign Secretary to tell us what the Government are doing to help him?

Harriet Harman: I will ask my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary, when he writes to the hon. Member for New Forest, East (Dr. Lewis), also to send a letter at the same time to set out what the Government are doing in this respect. If there are any further questions to be asked, on the basis of the information that the Foreign Secretary gives to hon. Members, no doubt they can raise the matter again.

David Drew: On Monday this week, British Waterways announced that it was pulling out of the Cotswold Canal Partnership, which is a major project to reopen a canal that is mainly in my constituency. The news was given really peremptorily by British Waterways, even to the Minister who has line responsibility for the matter. May we have a debate on the relationship between public bodies such as British Waterways, Government Ministers and this place, to discuss how such decisions are reached and whether we could be afforded the courtesy of some forward knowledge of them, so that we could prepare to deal with difficult situations such as these?

Harriet Harman: My hon. Friend's point touches on the important issue of national agencies making decisions in a locality or region that will have a profound effect on that region. There is sometimes a sense that they are not accountable to the people in the region or locality who will have to suffer the consequences of their action. That is why we are going to bring to the House proposals for regional accountability, in which I know that my hon. Friend will play an important part. Meanwhile, I will bring the question of British Waterways to the attention of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government.

Nadine Dorries: The Leader of the House has already answered two questions on the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill that will be before the House shortly. May I drill down on that issue a bit further? A ruling has been made that amendments on the question of abortion can be tabled, and I would wish to table an amendment to bring down the upper limit from 24 weeks. Will the Leader of the House give us an assurance that abortion will be discussed in Committee on the Floor of the House, and that it will not be hived off upstairs to another Committee? Will she ensure that an issue as important as this can have input from all Members on both sides of the House?

Harriet Harman: The hon. Lady knows that the selection of amendments for debate is a question not for the Leader of the House but for the Speaker. On the question of abortion, the most important thing is that there is good sex education, that there is responsibility among young boys, and that there is contraception available for young girls—

Philip Davies: Timetabling.

Harriet Harman: The hon. Lady asked a question about the selection of amendments, and that is a matter for the Speaker.

Richard Benyon: In her discussions with the Foreign Secretary to convey the mood of many Members of the House concerning the plight of Simon Mann, will the Leader of the House also tell him that we would like to know what steps the Government are taking to bring in ambassadors or representatives from Equatorial Guinea, to put pressure on EU member states to get behind this case, and to ensure, as we did with those held at Guantanamo Bay, that any citizen—whatever they have or have not done—has the right to a free and fair trial and all rights under the law?

Harriet Harman: I think we are all concerned that people are entitled to their human rights wherever they are, and that the British Government stand up for human rights internationally and, particularly, look after British citizens whose rights are being breached by foreign Governments. As I mentioned earlier, this is a matter for our consular services, and I will draw the hon. Gentleman's comments to the attention of my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary.

Henry Bellingham: Further to those questions, surely we need more than just a letter; we need a statement on Simon Mann. He has two sons serving in the British Army. The point is that the Equatorial Guinea regime has kidnapped an EU citizen wholly unlawfully; there is no legal basis on which he can be held.

Harriet Harman: If that is the case, it is certainly a question for our consular representatives to take forward. It is often the case that, working together with other EU partners, we can be more effective than we can acting as a country on our own.

Peter Bone: The European Union (Amendment) Bill has so far been debated in Committee for eight and a half hours. On every occasion that it has been debated, we have only reached the first group of amendments, with many Members being left standing when the debate closed. It has been possible, however, to debate general motions about the Lisbon treaty for 15 and a half hours. I know that the Leader of the House wants to have a full debate on this matter. She could make an enormous name for herself by being courageous and bold here. She could do one of two things. She could get rid of the motions on the Lisbon treaty and debate everything in Committee, or she could be even bolder. I understand that Committees can sit even when the rest of the House is not here. We have a constituency week next week. Why does she not allow the Committee to sit next week so that we could have more time to debate these matters?

Harriet Harman: We are having more debate on the Lisbon treaty and the European Union (Amendment) Bill than we did on the Nice treaty, the Amsterdam treaty and the Single European Act put together. Indeed, we had six hours of debate—effectively a whole day—on the procedure and we have tried to be flexible in our interpretation of the procedure motion. Quite frankly, I do not believe that anything would satisfy Conservative Members. I do not know whether they ever listen to the business statement, but they well know that European business is being amended day in, day out. At the end of it all, however, the only things we know about the Opposition are that they want isolationism and that their only policy is to have a referendum. On that basis, they will never be fit for government.

Mark Harper: In support of my hon. Friend the Member for New Forest, East (Dr. Lewis) in respect of his constituent Simon Mann and his wife and children, may I ask the Leader of House to implore the Foreign Secretary to talk to our allies, particularly the United States which is so influential in this area? Will she do so as a matter of urgency, because if she does not, it may be too late?

Harriet Harman: My suggestion to hon. Members who have raised this issue is to ask the Foreign Secretary for a meeting. I will tell my right hon. Friend to expect a request for such a meeting from hon. Members who have expressed interest in the case.

Flanagan Review

Jacqui Smith: With permission, Mr. Speaker, I would like to make a statement in response to Sir Ronnie Flanagan's independent review of policing in England and Wales. Copies of the final report have been placed in the Library.
	I want to start by thanking Sir Ronnie for his report. He has worked hard, meeting and talking to people up and down the country. I particularly appreciate the work he has done to include the voices and views of front-line officers. His recommendations are independent and challenging to all of us across the political spectrum and to the police themselves.
	In asking Sir Ronnie to carry out this review, we were determined to find the best ways to ensure that the Government's investment in extra police officers and police community support officers has an impact where it counts—with visible teams in every neighbourhood and with officers able to focus on what will really make a difference in continuing to reduce crime levels. The report is wide ranging and it deserves further reflection and discussion. It raises important questions about how working practices can be reformed so that police officers can get the most out of their job and communities can get the best out of the police.
	I believe that we can make quick progress in reducing bureaucracy, which will be my main focus today. The Association of Chief Police Officers recognised in its submission to the review that
	"current levels of unnecessary bureaucracy are created both within as well as outside the police service".
	Sir Ronnie is clear that freeing up police officers to do the job they came into policing to do requires more than simply removing paperwork, important though that is. It is not just about cutting requirements from the centre, important though that is, too. It requires new thinking on performance management from top to bottom of the police service; new attitudes to risk; new ways of working across the criminal justice system; and new technology to support the work of policing. I accept that challenge and we are already making progress in response to Sir Ronnie's interim report from September.
	First, from this April, our new public service agreements and targets will provide greater flexibility to focus on what matters locally, on serious violence and on antisocial behaviour, and streamline the process that gets suspected criminals to court. Secondly, we are consulting on reforms to the working of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 that will reduce police bureaucracy and allow experienced officers to focus on their core roles by making better use of police staff.
	Thirdly, working with my right hon. Friends the Justice Secretary and the Attorney-General, I am piloting a range of improvements to the way the police work with the courts and the wider criminal justice system. Those include virtual courts and new streamlined processes to reduce police and administrative time in preparing prosecution files. Fourthly, we are investing in new technology—including video identity parades, live scan electronic fingerprinting, body-worn cameras and the £50 million capital fund that will deliver 10,000 mobile data devices by this September—to make crime fighting more effective and to save officers' time. I want to end the days of officers having to enter details more than once on to systems that do not talk to each other.
	Sir Ronnie's final report shows how we can go further and identifies further savings to the equivalent of 2,500 to 3,500 officers a year. I accept his recommendations to achieve that and I commend Sir Ronnie for his careful and measured consideration of how to reduce the bureaucracy surrounding stop and account. I agree with his proposal that we should scrap the lengthy form that officers use to record data when they carry out that critical activity.
	I do not underestimate the need to build community confidence in policing. We must be able to monitor the proportionality of stops, so I welcome the proposal to use airwave police radio technology to record any encounter and to ensure that the simple card given out by officers to those stopped will have a phone number that they can call. We will immediately pilot this new approach to stop and account in three areas and I expect the changes to be national later this year.
	As the House will know, stop and account is a very different issue from stop and search, in respect of which Sir Ronnie says that
	"a more formal and comprehensive process is both proportionate and appropriate".
	I therefore welcome the work already being done by the Metropolitan police and the Metropolitan Police Authority, in co-operation with community representatives, to produce a shorter form for stop and search, which is being introduced later this month. Separately, the use of handheld devices to allow officers to input information directly and create a central record of a stop and search is cutting average time from 25 to six minutes. In view of the considerable benefits identified, I am calling on all chief constables to streamline their forms and process in the way Sir Ronnie has advocated.
	Both stop and search and stop and account can be powerful tools in tackling crime, so from April we will extend police powers to tackle gang-related gun and knife crime, enabling officers to stop and search in designated areas where an act of serious violence has taken place, as well as in anticipation of serious violence.
	We can now go further in other areas of recording. Sir Ronnie proposes that we endorse a radical new approach being trialled in Staffordshire and other forces, whereby police are freeing up more time to deal with victims of crime by using a standard one-page form. Officers are able to use their discretion as to how much further information they record, proportionate to the severity of the crime. I will ensure that that approach can be introduced nationally as soon as possible.
	In today's report, Sir Ronnie celebrates the development and delivery of neighbourhood policing. Thanks to the hard work of forces and police authorities throughout England and Wales, there will be a team for every neighbourhood in April. More than 3,600 teams are now in place and 16,000 police community support officers have been recruited. Up and down the country, at public meetings and in street briefings, local communities are helping to influence their team's priorities. Throughout March, people will be hearing more about who their local teams are and how they can contact them.
	I have asked Sir Ronnie to report back to me in six months on the progress we and the police are making to reduce bureaucracy. This spring, I will publish a Green Paper with proposals for greater flexibility for front-line officers and staff, greater reductions in bureaucracy, strengthened local accountability arrangements and a reformed performance management framework.
	Sir Ronnie's report sets out a powerful challenge for how we can adapt to meet the demands of 21st century policing. We can do so by freeing police officers from unnecessary red tape; giving them the skills and tools for the valuable job they do; delivering neighbourhood policing in every area; and ensuring a better police service for officers, victims and communities alike. I am sure the police service and the Government will, working together, rise to that challenge. I commend the statement to the House.

David Davis: I thank the Home Secretary for advance sight of her statement. I am glad that it, at least, was not lost in the post. I also thank Sir Ronnie for his invaluable contribution to the debate on police reform.
	I agree with Sir Ronnie's assessment of the state of policing in Britain today. The question is, does the Home Secretary? Does she recognise, and does she accept, Sir Ronnie's candid assessment of 10 years of failed policy? In Sir Ronnie's own words, that policy has left the police subject to "perverse incentives", "a slave to doctrine", and "straitjacketed by process". Police spend a fifth if not more of their time on bureaucracy, and wade through a "raft" of targets—and that is just what Sir Ronnie was allowed to say.
	The original draft, widely reported, included material that has been taken out, and which we have not been allowed to hear today. For example, why does the Home Secretary dispute Sir Ronnie's estimate that our police forces face half a million hours of audit inspection every year? On what basis did she delete references to the devastating effect of—again, these are Sir Ronnie's own words—"top down management", the "proliferation" of process and "declining public confidence", and Sir Ronnie's finding that the over-centralised Government of which she is a member is "part of the problem"? On pages 64 and 65, the original report refers to
	"The focus on national priorities... and consequent decline in public confidence and satisfaction with policing".
	The final report states:
	"'Public satisfaction in the police... has shown gains"
	since the 1990s. That is not quite the same, and I wonder whether the Home Secretary can explain the change.
	We agree with many of the recommendations in the Flanagan report, even the Home Office-edited version. It demonstrates clearly that Labour's approach—over-centralised micro-management of the police—has failed. We have proposed an alternative approach, involving a locally controlled police force with officers on the street, free of unnecessary red tape and free to do the job of protecting the public.
	Sir Ronnie has adopted a number of our ideas, including scrapping stop and account—to which the Home Secretary referred—and introducing virtual courts. Those and other common-sense measures will receive our support. But there again, we have been calling for a fundamental overhaul of police bureaucracy for years, and we have had more police reviews from the Government than we have had Home Secretaries.
	Let us look at the specifics. The Home Secretary has expressed support for increased civilianisation of police functions. We introduced civilianisation 15 years ago, and we made some sensitive and positive proposals a year ago. Will the Home Secretary tell us her response to the president of the Police Superintendents Association, who said this morning that there was a limit to the scope for civilianisation in a large number of forces?
	If the Home Secretary wants to make a real difference, she should simply adopt the whole Conservative agenda. She should scrap forms, starting with the stop-and- account form but including the stop-and-search form. She should slash targets—rather than just fiddling with them—and the army of auditors that goes with them. She should strengthen police powers of stop and search to respond effectively to incidents or threats of knife, gun and drug crimes, and she should reverse the health and safety rules that wrap officers in cotton wool and put the public at risk.
	The Home Secretary can go further. Will she adopt our proposals to put police back on the beat, revise the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 so that the police do not spend up to seven and a half hours filling in forms before they can stake out a known burglar's house, and restore charging discretion so that they spend less time waiting for the Crown Prosecution Service to make up its mind? Will she end 10 years of corrosive centralisation, and accept our long-standing call for locally elected police commissioners?
	The Flanagan report is long and comprehensive, but it demonstrates two key facts: that the failure of 10 years of Labour's centralised micro-management has demoralised the police and debilitated public confidence, and that it is the Conservatives who understand what it will take to get police back on our streets, accountable to the communities that they serve.
	After five—five!—studies of police bureaucratisation and 150 recommendations before this report, none of which has been implemented, will the Home Secretary please tell us when the Government will stop just talking about stronger law and order? When will they get a grip and deliver it?

Jacqui Smith: I am glad that the right hon. Gentleman did not have to put any extra work into his contribution by adding to what we had already read in  The Sunday Telegraph last week.
	The right hon. Gentleman made much play of Sir Ronnie's words. Let me quote what Sir Ronnie said in the introduction to his report:
	"These additional resources have undoubtedly contributed to a significant improvement in performance, with crime falling by a third since 1997 and public confidence in the police, which had been falling consistently since 1982, rising since 2003/4."
	When the right hon. Gentleman finally began to deal with the substance of the report, we heard a series of references to elements of measures that I have announced today, or had already introduced, which he supports. He supports the action we are taking on stop and account, although his right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition did say last week in  The Sun:
	"We will carry out a review to see how we would"
	reform stop and search. We have identified how we will reform stop and account, and I referred today to the work that is already under way to reform stop and search within the Metropolitan police and more widely.
	The right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (David Davis) claimed that virtual courts were somehow an Opposition idea, but it is the Government who are now establishing the process in London. It has taken a Labour Government to deliver that. The right hon. Gentleman made some serious points—as did Sir Ronnie Flanagan—about the process of authorisations under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000, but we have already removed the equivalent of 24 hours of police time per day as a result of earlier reviews, and we will of course go further.
	I am sorry that the right hon. Gentleman chose to spend the vast majority of his time discussing the various versions of the report on which he has managed to lay his hands, and spent the rest of it regurgitating his  Sunday Telegraph statement. I think that this issue demands more serious consideration, and that is what Sir Ronnie and the Government will give it.

Christopher Huhne: We welcome Sir Ronnie Flanagan's report, which is very much in line with many of proposals made by the Liberal Democrats over the years. Civilianisation, neighbourhood policing, increased use of technology and, indeed, a single case file system for the Crown Prosecution Service and the police should all be priorities. It seems to us, however, that as there has been substantial consensus on so many of these matters for such a long time, the real need is for action rather than recommendations. This is, to my certain knowledge, at least the fifth and perhaps the seventh review of modernisation in as many years. Sir Ronnie has suggested that the work force should be modernised over a 10-year period. Will the Home Secretary make a commitment to try to introduce some of the key changes rather more rapidly, particularly given the opportunities afforded by the retirement bulge?
	It is important to reduce bureaucracy without impairing the safeguards against abuse. The proposal to cut the bureaucracy involved in stop and account is sensible, as no coercive powers are used by the police when it occurs. However, in the case of stop and search, the Home Secretary has announced an extension of police powers to tackle gang-related gun and knife crime, which is not recommended in Sir Ronnie's report and which would enable officers to stop and search in designated areas when an act of serious violence had taken place. Will she give concrete examples of circumstances in which the extensive powers for stop and search under part I of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, section 60 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994, or section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000 are failing—or is this another instance of the Government's addiction to reaching for legislative powers when what is needed is implementation?

Jacqui Smith: I thought that the hon. Gentleman was responding very seriously until the end of his remarks. Let me respond to some of his serious points.
	I agree that there is much scope for both better efficiency and a better service to the public in work force reform. The hon. Gentleman suggested that that was not already under way. In fact, owing to the investment that the Government have been willing to make in increasing police personnel more generally, more and more time is being freed for police to spend on the front line. We see growing numbers of specialist staff, for example, working in roles such as the licensing of firearms and explosives, carrying out criminal records checks, front-office duties, and control room and CCTV activities; and increasingly in some of the work force modernisation pilots we see them working in areas including custody, training and some courts duties. Those and other efficiencies have enabled us to increase the time officers spend on front-line duties in each year since 2003-04 to the equivalent of having more than 5,000 more police officers on the front line.
	I welcome the hon. Gentleman's welcome for our action on stop and account, which will be introduced quickly following the three-month trials Sir Ronnie recommends. On stop and search, we have evidence—such as in tackling gangs—that the section 60 search provisions the hon. Gentleman referred to are being used effectively alongside other action to protect people from guns and gang-related crime. We proposed their extension during the passage of the Serious Crime Act 2007 so that they can be used both before and after an attack takes place. That is a reasonable and proportionate use of the stop-and-search powers, and that is what will be introduced from this spring.

Keith Vaz: I welcome this excellent report and the Home Secretary's powerful commitments. As she will know, the Home Affairs Committee is about to start a major inquiry into policing which will begin in Newark and end in Monmouth. As several Committee members discovered on our visit to Hackney on Monday, the public want, as far as it is possible, a bonfire of blue tape, and also for visibility to be put at the heart of community policing—they want to see the police constable right at the centre of what is going on. I therefore hope that the Government's plans for neighbourhood policing will be rolled out, and it would be helpful if my right hon. Friend gave us a timetable. Also, might it be possible for us to get our old police boxes back?

Jacqui Smith: I thank my right hon. Friend for his comments. I am sure when he was in Hackney he was able to celebrate with local police officers and Hackney council the considerable fall in crime that has been achieved in that part of London. The local authority, the Mayor and the local police force deserve congratulations on that. I am not sure I can reassure my right hon. Friend on bringing back police boxes, but I hope I can do so on neighbourhood policing: I agree that it is fundamental to ensuring that communities have confidence and that it is important that police officers are a visible presence. We will, of course, be in a position to ensure that there are neighbourhood policing teams in every single community in this country by April this year. I know that local communities are already engaging actively with them.

James Clappison: Further to what the right hon. Member for Leicester, East (Keith Vaz), the Chairman of the Home Affairs Committee, has just said, is the Home Secretary aware that three years ago the Committee published a report that found that not enough progress was being made in key areas of police reform? Is she aware that if that report had been responded to thoroughly and promptly, much of what she has promised today would not have been necessary because it would by now already have been accomplished? Will she give an assurance that during this process she will listen to what police officers themselves say? They have told me that they are still as frustrated as ever by the mountain of red tape that they have to confront, which has been introduced in the past 10 years.

Jacqui Smith: I shall of course listen to front-line police officers—as, in fact, Sir Ronnie Flanagan has done. Equally, I will listen to the public about the service they want from their police. For the hon. Gentleman to suggest that reform has not been successful at a time when the numbers of police personnel are increasing, their use is enabling police officers to focus more on their front-line activity and crime is falling, is a travesty both of the reforms and the progress that not only this Government but, more importantly, police officers and police staff have made over the past few years.

Alun Michael: I hope that my right hon. Friend agrees that neighbourhood policing is not just about numbers, but that it requires a local partnership approach to cut crime. Will she make sure that the flexibility to which she referred at the beginning of her statement is driven by a clinical approach to measuring and cutting crime in local areas? On violence, which she highlighted, might she learn from the scientific approach introduced by a surgeon in Cardiff, which significantly cut violence by identifying exactly where it was happening and how? There are scientific approaches that could assist the police and which are not currently being used to the full.

Jacqui Smith: My right hon. Friend is right to say that an important aspect of neighbourhood policing is the partnership it is able to build up, including with local government, particularly using the crime and disorder reduction partnerships. That partnership has already led to the success of neighbourhood policing in helping to reduce crime and build confidence. He is also right to suggest that we should learn from important activities such as the one he described, where accident and emergency units identify the reasons that people come into their casualty departments, for example where drink is involved, so that action can subsequently be taken. I was pleased yesterday to be able to refer to the work being done across the whole of the south-east in making those links in order to cut violent crime.

Jeremy Wright: I welcome the fact that the stop form is to be scrapped, but it should never have been introduced in the first place. May I take the Secretary of State back to an issue raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (David Davis), the shadow Home Secretary: the civilianisation of police functions? Does she accept that doing that might lead to the resilience of police forces in emergency situations being weakened, and will she reassure us that anything that is done to improve day-to-day efficiency will not undermine the capacity of police forces to respond in emergencies by bringing officers from back-office functions back on to front-line duties?

Jacqui Smith: It is worth while remembering that the stop-and-account form came out of the Sir William Macpherson review into the murder of Stephen Lawrence. Sir Ronnie has spoken to Sir William Macpherson, who says he is convinced that stop and account is an example of where the police have gone further bureaucratically than was intended by his eminently sensible recommendation to protect the police and the public and the relationship between them. The form was developed for wholly laudable reasons, but it is right, given that support and Sir Ronnie's recommendation, that we now get rid of it and find more effective methods. I disagree with the hon. Gentleman that having—to borrow Sir Ronnie's description—the right people in the right place at the right time, including using civilians where appropriate, makes the police less able to respond; in fact, it frees up police officers to do the jobs that only police officers can do. Therefore, the progress we have already made should be welcomed.

Karen Buck: The report includes many sensible recommendations that I wholly support. As a Member who has had two young men in my constituency lose their lives in knife-related violence in the past year, I am absolutely committed to anything we can do, including the use of stop-and-search powers, to reduce the number of guns and knives on our streets. However, may I remind Conservative Members that the accountability measures that were introduced after the Macpherson report came about because of the breakdown in trust between the police and many urban communities? Stop and search should be intelligence-led and not prejudice-led if we are going to retain community support in reducing crime. Will my right hon. Friend assure me that in cutting bureaucracy we will not lose that vital accountability of the police to our communities?

Jacqui Smith: My hon. Friend makes an important point and she demonstrates the difference between being able to get an easy headline and actually being able to deliver improvements by reducing bureaucracy while at the same time maintaining trust among our communities. We are taking the latter approach; unfortunately, Opposition Members have taken the opposite approach.

Julian Lewis: Can the Home Secretary reassure members of the public and me about one of the more alarming aspects of the report that I read yesterday? I am talking about the suggestion that equal weighting is given in police targets to solving simple, low-level crimes and solving serious crimes. Is that the case? If so, it must be addressed because otherwise the police will naturally concentrate on solving lots of little crimes rather than the important ones.

Jacqui Smith: I do not believe that was ever the case, but we have recognised the concerns about the targets that we set on offences being brought to justice. As the hon. Gentleman says, serious violence should clearly be treated more seriously than other offences. That is why our new performance framework, starting this April, reflects the significance of serious violence in managing police forces' performance.

David Kidney: I thank my right hon. Friend for picking out Staffordshire police for particular praise in her statement. Does she agree that its strong performance can largely be put down to a succession of excellent leaders in its chief constables, up to and including the present one, Chief Constable Sims, and a very supportive police authority, which is ably led by Councillor Mike Poulter? When Staffordshire police tell me that they can implement the Flanagan proposals for cutting bureaucracy in just 12 months, I believe them—does she? If she does, will she assist them with getting started on that work straight away?

Jacqui Smith: My hon. Friend is right. He has brought to my attention the excellent work being done by Chief Constable Chris Sims and the police authority, which, as he said, is led by Mike Poulter. That work has also come to the attention of Sir Ronnie Flanagan, and I believe it also came to the attention of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister last week. The way in which Chief Constable Sims has been able to reduce the recording crime paperwork while putting increased focus on victims is inspiring. As I have made clear today, the proposals should be rolled out quickly not only in Staffordshire but in the rest of the country in order to realise the massive potential that exists.

Hywel Williams: I am sure that the Home Secretary will join me in paying tribute to the high quality of policing throughout Wales. Will she confirm that proper consideration will be given to the costs and difficulties of policing in rural areas when the new statistical profiles and the funding formulae are being developed? When I read chapter 2 quickly, I did not see any reference to that point, which is particularly important in the Welsh context.

Jacqui Smith: May I reassure the hon. Gentleman that Sir Ronnie had considerable engagement with the Welsh Assembly Government and with representatives of Welsh forces and police authorities in putting together his review. The issue that the hon. Gentleman raises is slightly different in terms of the formula used to allocate resources. The previous formula review considered the impact of rurality on the distribution of funding. I am sure that will be one of the issues that he will bring to our attention when we review that formula again, and it will, of course, need to be put into the mix when we consider that allocation.

Helen Southworth: Despite the fact that between April and December 2007 violent crime reduced by 13 per. cent in Warrington and personal robbery reduced by 31 per cent., we have experienced some serious crimes involving tragic loss of life. My constituents want significant further action to be taken to reduce crime on our streets. Can my right hon. Friend assure me that there will be no reduction in the number of police officers on the streets tackling crime in Warrington?

Jacqui Smith: My hon. Friend rightly draws attention to the importance of our investment in police officers and the work that is being done locally. I understand the particular circumstances that caused concern in her constituency. Next year, we will ensure that Cheshire police force receives a 2.5 per cent. uplift in the central police grant, including a 2.7 per cent uplift in the part of the grant that relates to neighbourhood policing. It is for the local chief constable to make decisions about the issues she mentions, but I believe that the Government have ensured that the resources are available to put the policing personnel in place to tackle crime and to ensure that her constituents feel safe.

David Davies: These reforms will be welcomed by all police officers, but may I recommend that the Home Secretary examines one other aspect? A growing number of people who are stopped by police for offending and dealt with by process are not being searched, even though many of them will have recent convictions for carrying knives, drugs or guns. Will she consider giving police the power automatically to do a non-invasive, pat-down search of anyone who is stopped for breaking the law but is not being arrested?

Jacqui Smith: It is quite difficult to envisage a search not being invasive. The hon. Gentleman makes the important point that we need to continue talking to police officers about the powers that they need to do their job properly, and I can certainly give him the undertaking that we shall do that.

Brian Jenkins: As a Staffordshire MP, I welcome the report and I look forward to its implementation in Staffordshire. The Home Secretary is fully aware that this country has too many police authorities and that there is a wide divergence in their performance. How will she ensure that the best practice of the better-performing authorities is passed to lower-performing or poorer authorities? Will she consider introducing a light-touch audit on the authorities that perform well?

Jacqui Smith: If my hon. Friend is arguing, as I think he might be, for us to look at the performance management regime and ensure that it is proportionate in representing success but strong in challenging underperformance where it exists, he makes an important point. That will be an important element of the consideration that we will put into the policing Green Paper.

Henry Bellingham: Is the Home Secretary aware that recently a number of high-profile cases have exposed the deficiencies and limitations of police community support officers—they have little training and limited powers of arrest, and are paid. In stark contrast, the specials, who do a superb job, are not paid, they are all volunteers, they receive high levels of training and they have normal police powers of arrest. What plans does she have to put more emphasis on the specials and to boost their numbers?

Jacqui Smith: Specials do an excellent job, their numbers are increasing and we should congratulate them on their work. However, to congratulate them while denigrating the crucial work that PCSOs do in communities across this country day in, day out short changes not only our communities but PCSOs and specials. It is about time that we recognised, as I believe people within policing do, that policing is about a range of contributions being made by the specials, PCSOs, police officers and police staff. To run down one particular section in order to make a point demeans the argument.

Sally Keeble: I welcome the report and the shift in resources from the back office to the front line that it recommends. That is just what the public want. Will my right hon. Friend assure us that the kind of efficiency savings that are being talked about—2,500 to 3,500 officers-worth—will not be scooped up by Government generally, but will be redeployed and will produce the extra officers that people want to see, be they police officers, PCSOs or staff, such as forensic staff, who are civilians but who are key partners in the fight against crime?

Jacqui Smith: My hon. Friend makes an important point. We have rightly set strong efficiency targets for the police service, on which it has delivered well. The report is about ensuring that we can shift the resource that is already in policing so that, as Sir Ronnie appropriately puts it, we have
	"the right people in the right places at the right times, doing the right things."
	That is what this report and our action are about.

Philip Davies: In my time on the parliamentary police scheme, I detected a debilitating culture in the police, whereby it seemed better not to make a bad decision than proactively to make a good decision. Police officers of all ranks seemed afraid of making decisions lest something went wrong and they were left hanging out to dry. Will the Home Secretary ensure that officers are given proper support when things go wrong through genuine mistakes and are not left in the situation that I have outlined? Will she ensure they are given more discretion to size up situations for themselves? They should not process people through the custody desks on cases that they know are not going anywhere just because they do not feel that they have discretion to size up the situation for themselves. That happens at the moment.

Jacqui Smith: I do not think that the hon. Gentleman meant this, but in my contact with police officers I have not felt that they have a debilitating culture. I have always felt that they have a can-do attitude in the way in which they respond. From a position of some experience, the hon. Gentleman makes an important point about how we can maximise discretion and support police officers in making split-second decisions in which it is appropriate that they have the support of the public. I have always provided that support for police officers and senior police officers in such circumstances when, sometimes, those on the Opposition Front Bench have not. The hon. Gentleman makes an important point about the way in which we provide that discretion and support and the Government are committed to ensuring that that will happen.

Gordon Prentice: But is not the police service the classic example of an organisation where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts? There must be a limit to civilianisation. Is not our drive for efficiency often seen in the police service as deskilling the organisation and losing its resilience?

Jacqui Smith: Of course there is a limit. There are important roles that only sworn police officers can play. In my experience, including of some impressive projects that I was looking at just last week, there is still great enthusiasm from police officers and others about the idea that we should ensure that whether someone is a member of police staff, a police officer or a police community support officer, they focus on what they are best able to do and therefore provide the best service to the public. We have seen good examples in both our work force modernisation pilots and other projects of increased police activity, increased public satisfaction, falling crime rates and—dare I say it?—general content all round. While we continue to see that, I would be keen to push on with those programmes. I know that they have widespread support across policing.

John Baron: May I return the Home Secretary to a question posed by my right hon. Friend the shadow Home Secretary, which she never answered? When it came to Sir Ronnie's original draft of his review, why did she remove the reference to half a million hours spent on audit work?

Jacqui Smith: Sir Ronnie's review was written by Sir Ronnie and published today. It is written in his own words and I respect them.

Chris Bryant: Is it not a mistake to go down the line of the hon. Member for North-West Norfolk (Mr. Bellingham) and praise one part of the police team rather than the whole police team? It is only when we have the civilian staff as well as the constables, the specials and the PCSOs working together that we can get what constituents want, which is a regular presence on the street, swift answering of the telephone, somebody there when there is an emergency and every claim taken seriously. It is not also important that we boost the specials? Would it not be better to have more local training of specials so that we could encourage more people to come into the force? Perhaps we could consider a small honorarium of £500 a year for specials.

Jacqui Smith: My hon. Friend makes an important point about the range of police personnel. The fact that the Government have been willing to invest so that there are 25 per cent. more police personnel now than there were in 1997 is very important. He makes some interesting points about the specials, which I shall certainly consider as we approach the Green Paper on policing.

TOPICAL DEBATE

NHS Staffing

Ann Keen: I beg to move,
	That this House has considered the matter of NHS staffing.
	This July, we celebrate the 60th anniversary of the national health service. As the Prime Minister said in a recent speech, it is not only a great institution but a great, unique and very British expression of an ideal. Health care is not a privilege to be purchased but a moral right secured for all.
	Over the past six decades, the NHS has cared for tens of millions of people and saved many hundreds of thousands of lives. It has been at the forefront of innovation in health care, pioneering advances in medical treatment, such as triple therapy for TB; in surgery, such as artificial hip replacements; and in imaging, with the development of MRI scanning. With its unique offer of health care free for all at the point of need, it has liberated us all from the fears of unaffordable treatment and untreated illness.
	As we begin to celebrate the achievements of the NHS over the past 60 years, it is right that as new technologies emerge, as expectations rise and as health care needs change we look ahead and continue to reform and renew the NHS for the future. Indeed, the birth of the NHS was not easy. Aneurin Bevan had not only to persuade his colleagues in Cabinet that all hospitals should come under the umbrella of the new national health service but to fight to establish the NHS in the face of concerted opposition in Parliament from the Conservatives, who voted against its establishment at each turn, and outside from the British Medical Association, I am afraid, which was equally opposed to the idea.

David Davies: Is it not the case that the NHS came about as a result of the Beveridge report in 1942 and was supported by the glorious leader of Parliament at the time, Winston Churchill, who was a Conservative MP?

Ann Keen: The hon. Gentleman should check the facts. The Bill that set up the NHS was voted against on Second and Third Reading. That was very sad.
	Babies born into the NHS in 1948 have had the opportunity of 60 years of the NHS. The NHS is one of the biggest employers in Europe and now employs more than 1.3 million staff. That level of staffing is required to provide the standard of health care that people demand and the significant improvement in health care provision that we have seen over the past 10 years.
	When we launched the NHS plan in 2000, the public made it clear that their top priority was to have more staff working in the NHS. More staff are working in the NHS in England now than in 1997. There are almost 11,500 more consultants, more than 35,000 more doctors and nearly 80,000 more nurses in the NHS than there were in 1997.

Henry Bellingham: The hon. Lady is explaining things very clearly. Is there a problem at the moment with the highly skilled migrant workers scheme, particularly at a time when a number of locally and fully trained doctors are having a great deal of difficulty finding jobs?

Ann Keen: As has been stated—I think the announcement came out today—migrant doctors are always welcome to work in the NHS, as they have been for the past 60 years. Without them, the NHS would not have reached the strength that it has today. However, the scheme involves training places, and that has been decided in a court of law.
	In addition, as I said, the investment has helped improve the delivery of treatment and care across the NHS and has driven down waiting times. The health budget has nearly trebled from £35 billion in 1997 to £90.4 billion. That investment in resources and staffing has had a dramatic effect on the health of the nation. Our reduction in the amount of time that people have to wait—

John Baron: I thank the Minister for giving way; she is being very generous. On the issue of staffing, will she not accept that the Department of Health's figures have recently shown that the number of managers and bureaucrats has grown at a faster rate than the number of doctors, nurses or consultants during the past 10 years? Does that not reveal a problem with bureaucracy in the NHS?

Ann Keen: The hon. Gentleman's point is not relevant to the management of a service that is very complex. Health care is not easy to deliver. It requires excellent management and excellent leadership. The managers are not there to be bureaucrats, but to manage a complex system. They manage it professionally and in the best way.
	The average in-patient wait for treatment has been slashed from more than 13 weeks in 1997 to around 4.5 weeks now. That is possible only with good management. More than 98 per cent. of patients now wait less than four hours in accident and emergency. That is an amazing, genuine and much-needed improvement. Over 1 million more operations a year are carried out now than in 1997, and 99.9 per cent. of people with suspected cancer are seen within two weeks of being referred. The number of heart operations has more than doubled since 1997.
	That has been achieved by investing in staff in the NHS. The service employs many more talented people, and they have shown consistently that they are capable of rising to whatever challenge the future holds. The Government are enormously grateful for the work that they do and want to support delivery with the appropriate resources.
	There are, of course, problems that still need to be dealt with, and many challenges to overcome. The Government are looking to continue to improve the NHS at all times. Our assessment is that we are around two thirds of the way through the reform programme that we set out in the NHS plan in 2000.

Peter Bone: Do the Government know how many whole-time equivalent dentists there are in the NHS?

Ann Keen: I cannot answer the hon. Gentleman now. I shall try to get an answer for him during the debate and, failing that, I shall write to him. However, I can tell him that the health of the nation's teeth and the state of our children's oral health are among the best in Europe. I praise the work being done by dental practitioners in the NHS.
	The challenge facing us now is to complete the job of reform. My noble Friend Professor Lord Darzi of Denham is leading an in-depth review throughout England. For the first time, we are including clinicians and staff at every level, as well as patients, charities, organisations in the third sector and all the bodies that help everyone in the NHS in developing work force planning. I have the privilege of chairing the work force group, and I am grateful for all the time that has been made available to ensure that the work force of the present and the future—who will take the NHS through the next 60 years—reflect the changing needs and demands of health care in the 21st century.
	The interim report from the Lords lays out a vision of a world-class NHS that is fair, personalised, effective and safe. The final report is due later this year, and will set out how we can deliver that vision and secure the NHS for the future.
	I want to pay tribute to the staff of the NHS. In particular, I want to praise the work of all those volunteers who are not classified as staff but who are very much part of the work force, as they have been since the inception of the NHS in 1948. Those volunteers give of their time so that patients get that extra bit of care that professionals are sometimes unable to deliver.
	In the US, for example, there is no national health provision, and the result is that more than 40 million families there worry every day about how to get the care that they need. We do not have that problem, thanks to the work done by Beveridge and the Attlee Government in 1948. We in this House have a duty to protect the NHS, and to make sure that it has the right work force. The care that it delivers must be safe, progressive and personalised, and that is our goal for the future.

Greg Mulholland: I warmly welcome this opportunity to debate this broad topic, although I am not sure what we have learned about NHS staffing from the speech that the Minister has just completed. It made no reference to the real problems experienced by NHS staff.
	The Government seem to have a paradoxical approach to their stewardship of the NHS. No one doubts their commitment to trying to make it work better, and it is factually correct that investment has increased. However, their management of the NHS is not delivering the necessary return on that investment, or delivering the real, positive change that the Government themselves recognise as necessary.
	At the heart of that paradox is the fact that this Government seek to control everything from Whitehall. Too often, they employ a one-size-fits-all approach, yet at the same time they seem to have something of a feudal, divide-and-rule attitude to NHS staff. Their running battles and regular and increasingly bloody skirmishes with different sectors of the NHS are causing resentment, disillusionment and anger among the people on whom we rely for the delivery of health services in this country.
	We are also still reaping the results of botched contract negotiations and inadequate work force planning. Taken together, those problems are holding back the NHS, at a time when it should be allowed to prosper and flourish.
	The 2006 Health Select Committee report branded work force planning in NHS a "disastrous failure". More recently, Lord Darzi's report outlined the need for an overhaul of work force planning and the commissioning of education and training. So far, however, it seems that very little has changed.
	There is an overall equation that at the moment simply does not balance. Staff have been taken on with no long-term thinking but simply to achieve centrally imposed targets. People have been laid off or denied training places so that NHS trusts can balance their books. Like MPs all over the country, I have had junior doctors, nurses and physiotherapists visiting my surgery or writing me letters because, after all the hard work that they have done—and all the training that they have received at great cost to the taxpayer—they simply cannot find a job.
	Yet huge amounts of money—some £1.18 billion in 2005-06—are being spent on agency nurses. They are hired at huge cost to the taxpayer, but better planning would mean that a great proportion of that money could be spent on health care and on areas where there are real gaps in NHS staffing.
	Of course, the Department of Health has increased the number of training places and encouraged more people to apply for them, but it did not ensure that sufficient jobs would be available down the line for newly qualified professionals. On the one hand, there are real concerns over staffing levels—especially in maternity and other areas—and about the overuse of agency staff but, on the other hand, we have disillusioned young people unable to pursue their chosen careers. The careers that those people want to pursue are needed and valued by society, yet nurses are currently leaving the country in their thousands.

Peter Bone: I am listening to the hon. Gentleman with interest, and I agree with much of what he has said. Does he agree that so many people leaving medical school are not getting jobs because medical professionals from Europe and elsewhere have been encouraged to come into the NHS? Is not that part of the mixture that is causing the problem?

Greg Mulholland: That is an interesting question, but the overall approach to staffing in all sorts of areas simply does not add up. I mentioned maternity services: we all know that there has been a failure to recruit enough midwives to provide the one-to-one care that the Government have promised. Birth rates are rising, many midwives have retired, and the problem can only get worse. If it continues, the chronic shortage of midwives could also force the closure of small childbirth centres across the country—just when the Government, quite rightly, are pushing forward with trying to give women real choice about where and how they have their babies.
	I turn now to the increasingly damaging row between the Government and GPs, in particular over extended hours. The Government are trying to paint that row as one between them and the "unrepresentative" British Medical Association, not doctors. The Government are trying to suggest that the BMA is not willing to offer more extended opening hours, but all the doctors to whom I have spoken say that they support some form of appropriate extended hours. As a result, they feel that they are being ignored and dictated to.
	Everyone agrees that extended hours are a good thing and, crucially, doctors agree with that too. The doctors in my constituency—indeed, all the GPs and their representatives to whom I have spoken—have made it clear that they would be more than happy to offer extended opening hours to their patients. However, they also have a very good idea of their own practice and their patients' lifestyles and needs, so they have different suggestions as to how extended opening hours could be offered to fit both their practices and, crucially, their patients' demands.

Ann Keen: The so-called dispute with the BMA is about a 10-minute difference between what we want patients to receive and what the BMA is proposing. That is in the context of an investment of £158 million. We believe that GPs will support the interests of their patients.

Greg Mulholland: That is exactly the kind of approach that is doing so much damage. It is about dictating, not listening. The row must be resolved by working together with doctors, and in partnership with GPs. The experience with dental contracts has shown that an imposed solution that is not acceptable to the medical profession will not work. Members may be slightly surprised to see me waving the flag for conflict resolution and peace, but it is vital for the future of primary care that a solution be reached with doctors. I hope that the Government and doctors sit down together to work through the issue, and that a flexible, sensible solution is found that works to the benefit of all.
	We need partnership, a much more flexible approach and much more local decision making, including on NHS staffing. We need real, long-term, strategic work force planning across the NHS. Instead of top-down solutions from Whitehall, we need solutions that are tailored and adapted to different needs and situations across the country.

Ann Keen: rose—

Greg Mulholland: I will give way, but I am not sure whether I get any more time for doing so.

Ann Keen: Lord Ara Darzi's review does exactly what the hon. Gentleman wants: it involves clinicians and patients. My question to the hon. Gentleman is: does he support the Ara Darzi review?

Greg Mulholland: I support the review of the current situation, but the Government have been in power for almost 11 years, and it seems a bit late for a complete overhaul of the way in which we run our NHS.
	The Government should stop trying to look tough all the time, stop alienating staff and stop alarming patients. They should come up with workable solutions that meet local health care needs. For now, the skirmishes carry on. They are draining and distracting for all sides, and are not conducive to the provision of health care, which clearly requires Government, local health care organisations and the professionals to work together. The Government are ignoring the cause of our nurses, have lost the trust of our junior doctors, and are now at war with GPs. They are trying to control instead of guide, dictate instead of empower, and micro-manage instead of devolve. That is not the way for the NHS to achieve its potential, and it is time for a change of approach. It is time, at last, for the Government to listen.

Richard Spring: On behalf of everybody present, and indeed on your behalf, Madam Deputy Speaker, and the behalf of every Member, may I pay tribute to the wonderful work done by doctors, consultants and nurses, and the ancillary workers who are often the unsung heroes of the NHS? As the hon. Member for Leeds, North-West (Greg Mulholland) says, there are tensions within the NHS. It is therefore simply beyond belief that not one Labour Member of Parliament intends to speak in this debate on NHS staffing. I hope that when the Minister makes her final comments, she will apologise for that, as it sends out a curious message to all those in the NHS who are under considerable stress.
	In recent years, the NHS has faced a number of problems, not least in Suffolk. The county has been hit by cash crises, service cuts, closures and redundancies. Our hospitals are continually on black alert. In the past 10 years, the number of available beds has been cut from 1,501 in 1996-97 to 1,194 in 2006-07. What is really sad is that community nurses and doctors have told me that the local hospital, the West Suffolk hospital, is being forced to discharge patients prematurely. Of course, the hospital is doing everything in its power to mitigate those unfortunate circumstances, but the situation has arisen because of very tight finances. The problem is that there are insufficient numbers of intermediate care beds, ever-increasing pressures on staff, and a top-down, centralised, target-driven culture that continues to drive front-line clinicians in our NHS to despair. That is well known.

Chris Bryant: I often hear the argument that there is too centralised a system in the health service, and many of us would sympathise with it, but there is a corollary: everybody also complains about the postcode lottery. There is a contradiction in many people's arguments. How does the hon. Gentleman resolve that contradiction?

Richard Spring: Of course the hon. Gentleman is right to say that there are difficulties. Naturally, the problem that it is possible to obtain a certain form of treatment in one part of the country but not another has to be resolved, but I am not really talking about that. I am talking about a culture that has caused people to be pushed out of beds prematurely—that is the view of community nurses and doctors—simply because of the pressures of centralised targets and control. That is quite different from the dilemma that he rightly mentions. There is a great sense of despair among many of those who work in the NHS. The result is that our GPs are forced to pick up the pieces, which is difficult. I was talking to a GP in my constituency about that only yesterday.
	Having targets for capacity in our hospitals raises the risk of superbugs such as clostridium difficile and MRSA. There have already been worrying increases in the number of superbug cases in some of the hospitals in the eastern region. Both West Suffolk and Ipswich hospitals have experienced increases in C. diff infections among patients over 65; in contrast, nationally there is improvement to the problem. Vomiting and diarrhoea bugs are commonplace. It is truly horrific that some elderly constituents of mine are now scared to go into hospital because of those bugs.
	I reiterate that our doctors, nurses and ancillary workers do a wonderful job, but they are struggling to cope. Job cuts have simply not helped the situation. I acknowledge that, as the Minister said, since 1997 the number of staff employed in the NHS has grown, but since September 2005, some 38,000 jobs have been cut from the NHS. Last year, almost 7,000 nursing jobs were lost. The total number of qualified nursing, midwifery and health visiting staff employed by West Suffolk Hospital NHS Trust has decreased by 9 per cent. since 2004. The number of professionally qualified clinical staff has decreased by 8 per cent. since 2003.

Ann Keen: The vacancy rate for nurses is 0.5 per cent., which is the lowest level for six years. The nursing work force are to be congratulated on that.

Anne Milton: It's the number of nurses.

Ann Keen: The hon. Lady mentions nurses; they are an important part of the work force. In fact, they are the largest part of it. It is important that we get our facts right.

Richard Spring: I note that the Minister does not contradict the fact that I mentioned about the diminution in numbers. It is based on information that is beyond dispute; the figures are official statistics.

Nicholas Winterton: I am sure that the Minister knows what I am about to ask my hon. Friend. There is a shortage of midwives in the national health service—a fact that is widely publicised by the Royal College of Midwives itself. There is also a shortage of student midwives. If the Government are to meet the guarantees in the Midwifery Matters strategy, the midwifery profession in the health service must be provided with more money, so that it can ensure safety in birth and the delivery of post-natal work.

Richard Spring: I am most grateful to my hon. Friend for making that point. He is entirely correct; the UK birth rate is increasing appreciably, so not only has there been a shortage of midwives but with the rising pattern of births the situation can only get worse.
	The statistics I gave are not in dispute, but in various parts of the country accident and emergency attendances put huge pressures on the staffing resources of hospitals. At West Suffolk Hospital NHS Trust, A and E attendances have soared by 34 per cent. since 2001-02, at the very time when there have been staffing cuts at the hospitals and a reduction in the number of beds.
	There has already been an allusion to the recruitment of doctors. It is a growing problem in Suffolk, so I welcome the Government's announcement today that they are attempting to preserve health service jobs for British graduates. However, budgetary constraints are another reason why junior doctors struggle to find employment; GP practices are unable to fund extra posts. I have had many conversations about that point with GPs in my constituency.
	I am constantly told by constituents and people who work in our hospitals that rather than cuts we desperately need more doctors and nurses in the local NHS, reversing the pattern of the past few years, yet instead the number of NHS managers is increasing three times as fast as the number of nurses. Between 2005 and 2006, twice as many nursing jobs were lost as managerial jobs. In the east of England, there has been a 4.9 per cent. increase since 1997 in the number of manager and senior manager positions—from 2,027 to 3,126—yet there has been only a 2.8 per cent. increase in the number of nurses, from 29,424 to 37,377.

Ann Keen: It is important to get the facts right. Our training levels for doctors have never been higher. The recruitment and retention rates for junior doctors, and for GPs in particular, have never been higher. It was right that we looked at their contracts some time ago, which has helped considerably in recruitment and retention, but I do not recognise the claim that there is a shortage. There are areas with inequalities and it may be more difficult to recruit GPs to them, but training in our medical schools, in particular for GPs, has never been at a higher level.

Richard Spring: I agree that the level of training for doctors is of high quality, but over the last few years, because of the appalling mismatch between the training and production of junior doctors and the lack of opportunities, many of them have been unable to find jobs, so they have emigrated. I am pleased about the Government's announcement, but I hope the Minister will not resile from the fact that over the last few years the morale of junior doctors has been severely tested by considerable confusion on the part of the Government, the results of which are clear to see.

Peter Bone: My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech. Does he agree that one of the problems is not the number of doctors trained but the number of vacancies? In some cases, up to 20 qualified doctors apply for one post; on average three times as many people apply as there are posts.

Richard Spring: My hon. Friend is entirely correct. In close memory, we saw junior doctors walking through the streets of London in protest against what had happened—an unprecedented situation in the history of the NHS.
	Management costs in the Suffolk primary care trust increased by 22 per cent. in the last financial year. Amazingly, there are now more people managing and organising the NHS than there are beds. I hope that some justification can be given for the astonishing payments to officials in our strategic health authorities, where massive salaries are paid. My dealings with the East of England SHA have not inspired me with confidence that the organisation is on top of the role it is meant to play.

John Baron: We all accept that there is a role for good management in any organisation, including the NHS. Does my hon. Friend feel that sometimes when we talk about bureaucracy the Government misrepresent the argument to make it seem as though we are attacking management, whereas in effect we are saying that there is room for good management but we must look at the costs of bureaucracy in the NHS for the benefit of all patients and staff?

Richard Spring: I entirely agree. Of course, good management is important but I do not think my hon. Friend will disagree that the extent and volume of management, especially in our SHAs, has not been particularly productive and is extremely expensive. Considering the ever-greater pressures on the NHS, because of demographic and other factors, there is a mismatch, which is exactly the point he was making.
	At West Suffolk hospital, there has been an increase of 184 per cent. over the past six years in the amount spent on salaries and wages for managers and senior managers. There has also been an 82 per cent. increase in the amount spent on salaries and wages for administrative and clerical staff. The figure has nearly doubled, yet there has been only a 73 per cent. increase in the amount spent on salaries and wages for nursing, midwifery and health visiting staff—from £16.6 million to £28.7 million.
	The Prime Minister's own independent reviewer of NHS finances, Sir Derek Wanless, said that little benefit has been gained from the huge pay deals that were a consequence of "Agenda for Change". The Select Committee on Health criticised the Government's poor financial planning:
	"The Government's estimates of the cost of Agenda for Change and the new GP and consultant contracts proved to be hopelessly unrealistic".
	Last year, while nearly £1.5 million was paid in bonuses to 231 "senior" civil servants in the Department of Health, a county such as Suffolk struggled to cope with an unfair funding allocation and considerable debts.
	Like many other parts of the country, Suffolk has an ageing population. The number of people aged 65 or over has increased by 11 per cent. since 1997; 19 per cent. of the population of Suffolk are now aged 65 or over. Furthermore, much of my constituency is rural, which adds to the problems. That lies at the heart of the NHS funding problem.
	Our local NHS struggles to match the needs and demographics of the local population. The Minister talked about inequalities, so I shall address that point firmly. For 2007-08, the per capita spend on the NHS was £1,156 in my constituency, well below the national average of £1,388. However, in the Prime Minister's constituency in Scotland, which does not experience the health crises that people have to put up with in a constituency such as mine, the per capita health spend was £2,019, almost double the amount in Suffolk, so the service cuts and huge debts in Suffolk have not happened in his constituency.

Nicholas Winterton: My hon. Friend is making a most interesting speech. I am most impressed by his statistics. Has he any statistics about the problems relating to mental health, where the shortage of professionally qualified staff is creating problems for GPs?

Richard Spring: My hon. Friend has always made an enormous contribution in the House on health matters, in which he takes a close interest. His question is about what is commonly described as the poor relation of the health services. I do not have specific statistics about the problem, but I am sure that he agrees that one of the tragedies in how mental health has been handled, from a financial and back-up point of view, is that many individuals who are tragically caught up in the vortex of mental ill health land up in the criminal justice system, where they remain for good. Nothing is more tragic in personal terms; it is also very destructive for society as a whole.
	I welcome the 5.5 per cent. increase that all PCTs are receiving in 2008-09, but it does not sufficiently address the problem that I have outlined. I have met officials at the Department of Health on several occasions to discuss the funding given to Suffolk, and have spent a great deal of time examining the funding formula that distributes funding to PCTs. The strategic health authority has accepted that we get a particularly raw deal. Rural areas such as Suffolk—many of my hon. Friends will be in exactly the same position—have been adversely impacted by a funding formula that discriminates against them.
	I raised the issue at a meeting with a former Secretary of State for Health, and she agreed that if the NHS structures in Suffolk and elsewhere were in financial balance by last spring, she would re-examine the problem of rurality as part of the NHS funding formula. I hope that the reason why the advisory committee on resource allocation has requested more time to finalise its review of the resource allocation formula is that it is seriously examining the rurality factor. I eagerly await the report, which we hope will finally be published this summer. I hope that the revenue allocation in my area will be considerably greater. The impact of the cuts on staffing is just one manifestation of the negative effect that the skewed funding formula has had in Suffolk and other more rural parts of the country.
	At the level at which most people have contact with the NHS, I fear that we are seeing a similar discriminatory effect. Haverhill, which is the largest town in my constituency, is being affected by the operation of the Carr-Hill formula, especially through its effect on the weighted list size of each practice. That has caused considerable distress to my constituents. I touched on the national funding formula and the fact that it has thrown up various anomalies over the years. Now we have an anomalous situation closer to home.
	For most people, contact with the NHS is most frequently made through their local GP surgery. A general practitioner is invariably the first port of call for people seeking help and GPs are hugely trusted in the local community. Yet the application of the centrally determined Carr-Hill formula has resulted in the town in my constituency which is the largest and most rapidly expanding in the whole county experiencing cuts of £280,000 for the local GP practices. That has meant that those practices will have to cut back, possibly remove staff, and make additional savings.
	People read the huge headline rates of supposed increases in spending in the NHS and they hear about the increased commitment by the Government, but they cannot marry that up with the fact that they see cuts in the local hospitals, beds being removed, staff given the sack, and the GPs in the biggest town in my constituency up in arms because they are faced with substantial cuts—about £280,000. The community has come together in an unprecedented way. Petitions signed by more than 10,000 people have been delivered to No. 10 Downing street and to the House.
	People cherish the NHS and want it to work. They cannot understand why such situations continuously arise. Having to deal with the consequences is hugely undermining for those who so loyally work in the NHS. I read Lord Darzi's proposals with great interest. In the report published last autumn, he proposed that each PCT should have a new GP-led health centre. I am delighted that an initiative is under way in Suffolk that may bring one of those new walk-in centres that is open from 8 am to 8 pm to Haverhill in my constituency.
	However, that does not offset the fact that one of the consequences of the budget cut in Haverhill, with its impact on staffing, is that some of the satellite surgeries that the GPs were able to operate in the villages surrounding the town will be cut, notably in the village of Kedington. People have got used to having a satellite surgery and they value it because public transport is limited. Because of staff pressures resulting from the cuts, the surgery there will be cut again. That undermines people's confidence in the NHS. They keep asking where all the money has gone. Such is the outrage in the village, where the GPs are held in high regard, that we are holding a public meeting. I will do everything in my power to encourage the survival of the GP surgeries, because they are held in great esteem.
	During the past 10 years the whole of the NHS has suffered badly, but in Suffolk it has been hit particularly hard. As the Minister said, the NHS marks its 60th anniversary this July. It was based on the founding principle of providing health care for all citizens and it is very much cherished, yet if the Minister has listened to what I said—I have tried to cite the statistics as accurately as possible—she will accept that people question whether that principle is still upheld. They do not understand what is happening.
	Our hospitals are at bursting point. There is no question but that staff morale in the NHS is very low, we do not have enough beds, patients are being discharged too early—not for clinical reasons, but because of the target-driven culture—and the obsessive bureaucracy is impacting on the lives of our doctors and nurses. When patients go into hospital, there is the danger, as a consequence of superbugs, that they will leave in worse health than when they were admitted. There is the prospect that some of my constituents will be without a local GP surgery. As the elderly population grows, the situation will become worse.
	In conclusion, yes, there has been an increase in staffing overall, although recently that has not been the pattern locally. Yes, more money has gone into the NHS and technology has improved. But my constituents share the concerns of doctors, nurses, community nurses and ancillary workers about what is going on in the NHS. Despite all the good intentions that may exist, morale is probably at its lowest point in the history of the NHS. That is a terrible indictment of what the Government have done.

Anne Milton: I associate myself with the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for West Suffolk (Mr. Spring) about staff in the NHS and I, too, pay tribute to them. Seventy per cent. of NHS funding is spent on staffing, and the effectiveness of the NHS depends on that work force. The recruitment, training, professional development and morale of the work force are crucial to the effectiveness of our NHS.
	There has been an absence of planning for and with staff to ensure that they can deliver the care and services that people need. My hon. Friend the Member for West Suffolk spoke about morale. The Health Committee report in 2007 stated that there has been a disastrous failure of work force planning. Although I always enjoy a history lesson on the inception of the NHS, I was disappointed that the Minister did not address work force planning, which is central to today's debate.
	What are our NHS staff doing? A survey of nurses last year found that 66 per cent.—two thirds—spent more than a third of their time on paperwork. Eighty-one per cent. said that less than half the forms were important for patient care. The nurse of the year last year said that some days she did not see a patient, and that was not good. She said that she was a nurse and she wanted to nurse—that was her profession. She cited "constant pressures with bureaucracy" as her primary reason for leaving.
	What about the money? In 2006, the NHS paid out £192 million in severance and redundancy payments. We have heard about the scandal of the pay-offs that the chief executive of Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust might receive. The Health Committee mentioned the huge growth in funds, and nobody would doubt that the Government have made considerable investment in the NHS. The question is about what they have done with the money.
	The Health Committee also talked about the demanding targets that are now set and the staff increases that far exceeded the NHS plan. The NHS was spending too much, and boom quickly turned to bust. The nurse of the year said:
	"Sitting in meetings we are constantly being told: 'We're going for this cheaper option with this bandage; we're going for that cheaper option with that dressing; we need to be mindful of resources; we need to watch what we are spending'. I'm absolutely fine with that—I run my household like that—but what I see as a waste of resources is when I'm sitting in a big meeting, and as a clinician I am the cheapest person there at £35,000 a year, and decisions are still being put off to another meeting."

David Evennett: My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech; we are listening with great interest. Is she aware that in my area, the accident and emergency units and maternity units are threatened with closure? That is disillusioning staff—hard-working nurses and midwives. They fear that the closures are due to financial pressures, not clinical need.

Anne Milton: My hon. Friend makes an excellent point —[Interruption.] The Minister is smiling, but she would be wise not to. The problem is that the Government have put huge resources into the NHS—more than three times as much in 10 years. However, what is happening to that money? The Health Committee stated:
	"There has been a disastrous failure of workforce planning."
	It went on to say that there is
	"constant re-organisation including the establishment and abolition of Workforce Development Confederations within 3 years. The planning system remains poorly integrated and there is an appalling lack of coordination between workforce and financial planning. The health service, including the Department of Health, Strategic Health Authorities (SHAs), acute trusts and Primary Care Trusts (PCTs), has not made workforce planning a priority."
	In other words, the Government have not made NHS staff—70 per cent. of what the money is spent on—a priority.

Ann Keen: Where is the evidence that the NHS does not make work force planning a priority? I chair a group under the Lord Darzi review—the first ever that involves all aspects of health care workers and those from the voluntary sector. Does the hon. Lady accept that that is good practice?

Anne Milton: I accept that the report from which I was quoting was produced by a Committee with a dominance of Labour Back Benchers, and was chaired by a Labour Member. I am simply quoting a report that has come from the Minister's own party's Back Benches.
	The Audit Commission is reviewing the SHAs' work force planning but that is to be kept a secret. There is fury in the press about that. Reference has been made to NHS managers. It is not that we do not need managers; one of my hon. Friends made the very good point that the NHS is enormous and needs management. However, there has been a 73 per cent. increase in the number of managers since 1996 and only a 31 per cent. increase in clinical staff.

Ann Keen: rose—

Anne Milton: I shall not give way because I am short of time and the clock is not stopping.
	Some £1.8 billion has been spent on agency staff. My hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield (Sir Nicholas Winterton) has a particular interest in midwives; the Royal College of Midwives is extremely concerned about the rising birth rate. It is up by 16 per cent. in London; there are 72,000 more babies. The number of deliveries per midwife has gone up. The NHS maternity services budget is shrinking, as is the NHS midwifery work force. We need more student midwives. There have been fewer training places in the years 2002-03, 2003-04, 2004-05 and 2005-06. Although there has been a significant increase in the number of nurses, there are now cuts in the number of specialist nurses and posts are being frozen. Some 180,000 nurses are due to retire in the next 10 years, and more than half rated their morale as very poor or considerably poor in a recent survey.
	The Department of Health itself has predicted a shortfall of 14,000 nurses by 2010. Independent research shows that the mortality rate in hospitals with the lowest registered-nurse-to-patient ratio is 12 per cent. The number of nurses per patient is literally crucial to the survival of patients. I could go on about physiotherapists. More than 2,000 physiotherapy students graduated in 2007, but only 25 per cent. have a permanent job. Some 49 per cent. have not been able to find one.
	We cannot walk down the street without a cardiologist pulling us away and inserting a stent. Yet the 66,000 people newly diagnosed with heart failure and the 345,000 people newly diagnosed with angina are not getting the cardiac rehab for which they are desperate.

Ann Keen: Will the hon. Lady give way?

Anne Milton: I would love to, but sadly time does not allow me.
	You have had 10 years of government, Madam Deputy Speaker—

Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. I remind all hon. Members that that does not involve me personally. Perhaps the hon. Lady would like to rephrase her comment.

Anne Milton: I apologise, Madam Deputy Speaker. The Government have had 10 years to get a grip on the situation, yet there has been an abject failure of planning for our NHS work force. The Government thought that all would be well if they chucked money at the NHS. In fairness, they have done that, but they have not considered what has happened to the money. One could consider it quite a feat that a Government who have given large pay rises to staff—particularly GPs and consultants—should also have managed to be so disliked and to drive morale down.
	We have mentioned targets. I recently had a conversation with an A and E physician who is unable to keep his patients who are waiting for an intensive care bed on at A and E simply because the manager wants them up in the medical ward, where they are less well looked after, so that he can meet his targets. The Royal College of Nursing states that there are serious deficiencies in work force planning and that they need to be addressed. There is an all-time low of health visitors, despite the fact that health inequalities are rising. The Secretary of State himself said last year:
	"The reality on the ground is that there is a gloomy mood. There has been an awful lot of change in a short period and staff feel overwhelmed by it."
	The verdict on the Government's work force planning is definitely D-minus— [Interruption.] The Minister is smiling again, but I do not think that NHS staff will share her joy. "Could do better"—it is a disgrace and appalling. I urge the Minister to stop listening to her officials at the Department who reassure her, and instead face up to the truth. In many areas, the NHS work force is in freefall. The incompetence shown by the Government is outstanding—

Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Lady's time is up.

Peter Bone: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Guildford (Anne Milton) on a powerful exposure of the situation. I know that she would have liked to give way to the Minister, but she could not because of the time limit. The Minister can intervene on me as much as she likes. We are lucky that she is here today; she has detailed knowledge not only from her previous and current roles, but from her intermediate role with the former Chancellor.
	I should like to start by praising NHS staff, who are extraordinary people. I am not thinking only of doctors and nurses, but I will single them out for praise. It is no secret in the House that five years ago my wife was diagnosed with liver and bowel cancer. A local GP had the skill to find a little lump that gave the alert. She was immediately sent to the local hospital, which is not in Wellingborough but a considerable distance away. I am grateful that the Minister has agreed to come to north Northamptonshire to look at that problem.
	The trick was to phone up in the morning to say that we were on our way. I did that, and was told that no beds were available. I said, "Blow this—I am coming anyway." By the time we got there, they had found a bed in a different part of the ward and she had the emergency operation. The skill of the 20 people who were involved in that operation and the recovery period was second to none. The same was the case when she had the emergency liver operation and, again, her life was saved by the NHS. I am pleased to say, touch wood, that she is fully recovered. Sitting in NHS hospitals for long periods at her bedside and observing NHS staff gave me an unusual insight into what goes on. There is no question but that the nurses in those hospitals are absolute angels. However, one of the problems that I noted was that on many occasions they were so short of staff that the nurses on duty stayed on for extra hours to cover and help out. They would also put off holidays to come in to look after their patients. That is a testimony to NHS staff based on my personal observations.
	I do not think for one minute that this is an evil, nasty Government who want to destroy our NHS—quite the reverse. They came to power in 1997 after my side had been kicked out, partly on the basis that there were 24 hours to save the NHS because those evil, terrible Tories had made a complete mess of it. I do not agree with that analysis, but that is what they thought. The Prime Minister, in his role as Chancellor, believed that throwing money at the NHS would solve the problem, and that is what he did. The amount of money going into the NHS in real terms has doubled since 1997, and it is now topping about £100 billion a year. That is equivalent to the amount that we will pay the European Union over the next few years, but that is another issue, which we have been debating in this Chamber for some time. While I am on the subject of the EU—

Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. I hope that the hon. Gentleman's remarks will be relevant to NHS staffing.

Peter Bone: Yes, they will. Having sat through the hours of debate on the EU, I was surprised to hear yesterday that the new treaty would give the EU some control over our national health service, the implication being that because ours is not a competitive system like those in the rest of the EU it can interfere with our staffing levels. There was not enough time for the Minister to answer that question, but it is an issue that we need to be concerned about; perhaps we can discuss it in another debate.
	The Minister kindly mentioned the volunteers in our health service, who do a tremendous amount of work, obviously unpaid, and are an integral part of it. Let me single out one group—Crazy Hats, which is based in my constituency and works to support breast cancer victims. It is a small charity that started from nowhere and has done exceptionally well. It has supported Kettering, Northampton and Leicester hospitals and raised an enormous amount of money. One of its methods is the annual walk round Wicksteed park, which my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr. Hollobone) and I will do in the next couple of weeks. The volunteers in our NHS, as well as the paid staff, do an enormously important job, and they have the gratitude of the whole country.
	Let me talk about something that I do in my constituency that has a bearing on this subject. My party is very keen on keeping in touch with what people think—it is always having opinion polls and focus groups—so I thought, "If it's good enough for my party, it's good enough for me and my constituency." We run a so-called tracking poll by putting out our "Listening to Wellingborough and Rushden" survey all the time in different parts of the constituency. Among other questions, we ask local people what are the issues that really concern them, and the NHS consistently comes up as the second most important issue in the area. When one analyses the sub-questions, one sees that the main issue is the lack of availability of health care and the lack of staff.
	I want to relate a very distressing story that is worth repeating—I have mentioned it before in the Chamber. It concerns a constituent of mine whose husband was in Northampton general hospital, which is one of the two hospitals that serves my area. He was elderly and quite ill, and unfortunately he was not being fed. Food was being placed at the end of his bed, but he was somewhat blind—that is not very good wording but I think that the Minister will take the point—and had a slight mental problem. In any case, he was a person who needed treatment. The food was put at the end of the bed, but then people came round two hours later and took it away because he was unaware that it was there. When his relatives put a sign above the bed saying, "My father cannot see the food—could you feed him?" the answer came back from the poor nurse, "I'm afraid we do not have time to feed the patients." That poor man begged to go home to die at home. He said that it was like being in a hellhole. Unfortunately, he got two hospital-acquired infections, and he did die at home. There is something wrong with a system that allows that to happen. I know that the Government would not want it to happen, but the Minister will know that I am not making it up.
	The Minister will not be surprised to learn that my area, north Northamptonshire, is the worst funded part of the NHS in the whole country, and the knock-on effects on staffing will be clear to everyone. The Government rightly work out, with considerable time and expense, a national capitation formula to work out how much each primary care trust should have each year to deal with its needs. Unfortunately, that is based on retrospective information, which does not help my constituents in an expanding area. Nevertheless, it would be okay if we received the national capitation formula. As the Minister knows, in each and every year since that formula was brought in, we have not received the full amount. Over the past four years, £120 million has not been provided to my local PCT because, we are told, other areas are overfunded. However, if there is a national capitation formula and that is the minimum amount that should be available in an area, why is my area not getting it? If we had £120 million more in north Northamptonshire, the hospitals there would have more nurses and we would have fewer problems.
	Staffing levels also have a direct effect on some of the treatments that are allowed in my area—for instance, IVF is not done, or is given a very low priority. I am much more concerned about the condition of wet-eye age-related macular degeneration.
	In parts of the country, hospitals can treat that condition very easily with injections. A patient would probably need three injections a year, for two or three years. The cost is a mere few thousand pounds. If we had a real national health service, my patients would not have to worry because there would be enough staff to provide those injections. I know that the Minister has been helpful on this matter, and so has the Prime Minister. As far as they possibly can, they have urged the PCT to give those injections. The situation is nonsensical because if people do not have the injections in a short period of time, the staff are not available to give them—

Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. I understand the hon. Gentleman's point, but the debate we are having this afternoon is on NHS staffing levels.

Peter Bone: I am grateful, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I think that I have made my point on the lack of staff for the treatment of wet AMD.
	I should have declared an interest at the beginning: I am a member of the Select Committee on Health. In the excellent speeches so far, we have heard that there are not enough staff in certain areas, while there are too many people applying for jobs in others. We have investigated this matter in the Health Committee and taken evidence, and we have heard that the Government recognise that there are not enough people available, that the staffing levels are wrong, and that there are dentist shortages. The fact that many dentists have left the NHS to go private has reduced the number of staff doing NHS dentistry. The Government ought to know, so that they can deal with the problem, how many whole-time equivalent NHS dentists there are. Unfortunately, I understand that they do not collate that figure. This wonderful national service is planning the provision of NHS dentistry, but it does not know how many dentists it has. It knows how many it has trained, but if it does not know how many it has got or how many it needs, it may end up providing too little training, or too much.

Ann Keen: I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way; he said that he would not mind if I asked him to do so. I believe that I can now inform him that the total head count numbers are healthy. In March 2007, there were 21,041 dentists on NHS lists, an increase of more than 4,000 since 1997.

Peter Bone: I am grateful for the Minister's intervention because she makes my point. The Government know how many dentists there are, but they do not know how many whole-time equivalent dentists there are. They do not know how many of those dentists are working for only a fraction of the time. They may be counting my dentist, who requires me to go private because he has come out of the service. He treats children on the NHS, so he would be counted as an NHS dentist, but he is not what we would call an NHS dentist. I do not want to be awkward about this, but the Government really need to look at the issue. I know that they want to improve the situation, but they need to know the figures.

John Baron: My hon. Friend touches on an important issue. All too often, the Government talk about head-count numbers but not full-time equivalents. In response to a point raised earlier by my hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield (Sir Nicholas Winterton) about midwives, the Government have suggested that there has been a massive increase in the head-count numbers, but if one looks at the number of full-time equivalent midwives, one finds that the situation has hardly changed at all. That would account for a lot of the shortages.

Peter Bone: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his intervention; he describes the situation exactly.
	We experience crises. The Government believe their figures—and why should they not?—but they have not asked the right question, which is how many whole-time equivalents there are.  [ Interruption. ]

Peter Bone: I am sorry, but I did not catch what the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) said. Does he want to intervene, or is he just chuntering?  [ Interruption. ] I see he does not want to intervene. Oh, he does.

Chris Bryant: How many Conservatives MPs are there? Some of them are not full time either.

Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. I think that the hon. Gentleman knows to keep to the motion under debate.

Peter Bone: I am sorry, Madam Deputy Speaker. I made a great mistake by letting the hon. Gentleman intervene.
	I know that the Government do not want what is happening, but it is happening none the less. Yesterday I was told that for the first time ever the hospital had to cancel a cardiac rehabilitation session because of the lack of staff. The Government would say that there are enough staff, but in reality that is not the case. The senior nurse to whom I spoke was dismayed at having to cancel the session. I know that the money is there and I guess that the former Chancellor lies down in a darkened room at night, and the Under-Secretary has probably seen him banging his head against a wall, saying, "Look, we've put all this money in—why hasn't it worked?" Everybody knows that that is the case and everybody is concerned about it.

Ann Keen: The results on heart disease are impressive. We have achieved our targets on improvements for all coronary artery disease, even though the hon. Member for Guildford (Anne Milton) does not appear to believe that that is a priority.

Peter Bone: I am grateful for the intervention. I know that the Government are in favour of targets, but the fact that we have doubled the amount of money that goes into the NHS but increased outputs by a maximum of only 25 per cent. is a problem, and I think we all accept that. I do not know where the black hole is. I do not believe that the money has gone into staffing, but it may have gone into reorganisation. When we reorganised Northamptonshire's PCT—I cannot understand why—from three PCTs to one, the cost of that, with hiring and firing people and so on, appeared to be a complete waste of money.

Anne Milton: I am sure my hon. Friend agrees that treating heart disease is crucial but that the Government are failing to put the resources into cardiac rehabilitation, which is just about the most cost-effective, non-interventionist measure possible. Forty-nine per cent. of physiotherapists have not got jobs and could undertake that cardiac rehabilitation.

Peter Bone: There has been no collusion between me and Front-Bench Members. That is most unlikely to be allowed in any case. However, my hon. Friend makes a fair point.
	One of the knock-on effects of the funding formula is that we do not have any cardiac rehabilitation worth mentioning at Kettering hospital. People have to go to Bedfordshire to get it. They describe the problem as a postcode lottery, but I disagree. If it were a postcode lottery, my constituents would have a chance of winning now and again. However, it is not a lottery but a decision made in Whitehall to underfund the people in my area and the east midlands. We heard earlier that much more money will be spent on NHS staff in Scotland than in other parts of the country.
	Spending on the NHS constitutes one of the largest parts of public expenditure. It is alleged that the NHS is the third biggest employer in the world. It was said that only the Red Army and Indian Railways employ more people. Unfortunately, that is not true. Now that Indian Railways has been privatised, the NHS has moved up to second place, and I daresay the Red Army is being cut back.
	I hoped that the Under-Secretary would tell me how many times the former Chancellor had had to go into a darkened room and bang his head against a wall to try to solve the problem. She probably did not want to divulge that information.
	Something about the NHS surprised me on Saturday. I visited a part of my constituency called Great Doddington for a public meeting—it would probably be characterised as a town hall meeting—to complain about the rotten fact that the post office there had been closed and that that was wrong. More than 100 people attended. However, the meeting was led by a local GP and the effect of the revised GP contract negotiations on staffing came up. Out-of-hours services are affected. I appreciate that that might be a problem in other parts of the country, but in my area we still have an out-of-hours service, which works well. It is called Keydoc and if one is desperate to see a GP in the middle of the night, as I was a little while ago— [Interruption.] I thank my hon. Friend the Member for West Suffolk (Mr. Spring) for passing me a note asking me to wind up as quickly as possible because people are getting bored. [hon. Members: "No!"] Keydoc is a very good system that provides out-of-hours cover; indeed, I used it only recently for my son. We therefore do not have a problem with out-of-hours cover in our area—it may be a problem in other parts of the country—but local GPs are up in arms about the money that will be taken away from them because they are not prepared to enter into the Government's new GP contract. Some local GPs even feel that their practices will have to close if the contract comes into existence.
	Finally, I appreciate that the Government are trying to do what they can to manage the NHS. The fact that we would manage it much better is neither here nor there at the moment because there will not be an election for a couple of years. However, there is one thing that I can say. There is not a single complaint about the number of NHS nurses or doctors in the hospital in my constituency or about the service that people receive. Instead, people are absolutely livid that we do not even have a hospital in my constituency. The Minister has graciously agreed to come to the area to discuss the issue—and the day that she has chosen is April fools' day.

Nicholas Winterton: I am pleased to follow the eloquent and passionate speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr. Bone), who showed considerable knowledge of the health service's advantages and shortcomings in his area.
	I did not initially intend to contribute to this debate, but I came in at the beginning and my interest has increased as the debate has progressed. I am pleased that the Minister will be replying, and I intend to give her plenty of time to do so. She may know that what would have been an outstandingly successful parliamentary career for me floundered because of my support for the national health service and what it stood for. I chaired the Health Committee for a period. It was a wonderful Committee, with fantastic relations with all areas of the national health service, mainly through the commitment of its members, not least various Labour Members, such as the late Audrey Wise and Mrs. Mahon. They were tremendously supportive of me in undertaking critical inquiries, one of which was into maternity services.

Greg Knight: Will my hon. Friend give way?

Nicholas Winterton: In just a moment.
	Will the Minister give a commitment that the money that the Government have promised to maternity services in the NHS will be brought forward? Without that money, the guarantees in the Maternity Matters strategy cannot be effective and new midwives and students midwives cannot start doing the job that maternity services urgently require. I obviously speak with a little knowledge—as the House knows, for some years I have been an honorary vice-president of the Royal College of Midwives, which is an office that I am very honoured to hold.
	The Minister will be aware that the midwifery profession also has a problem, in that a fairly high percentage of midwives are what I would call mature and may retire in the years that lie immediately ahead. That is why the staffing of maternity services and the coming forward of new midwives and students midwives into the NHS is so critical. It is unfortunate that so much emphasis is placed on targets, which take a lot of staff time, when much more should be devoted to, I would hope, successful outcomes.
	Perhaps my right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire (Mr. Knight) would like to intervene now, although I hope he will be quick because I want to give the Minister plenty of time.

Greg Knight: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way. The moment has almost passed, but I just wanted to say that he should not regard his career as a failure because he has never served as a Minister. He has been a distinguished Chairman of the Health Committee and the Procedure Committee.

Nicholas Winterton: I am very grateful to my right hon. Friend, who is now the very distinguished Chairman of the Procedure Committee. He was also a very distinguished Minister.
	The shortage of physiotherapists and speech therapists has been mentioned by at least two speakers in the debate. Those therapists are critical in the treatment of people who have suffered a stroke. If we are to give people a meaningful life after a stroke, physiotherapy and speech therapy are critical to their rehabilitation.
	In an intervention on my hon. Friend the Member for West Suffolk (Mr. Spring), I touched on the subject of mental health. This, too, is a subject in which I take a considerable interest. During my time working on health and social security matters, we undertook an in-depth inquiry into adult mental health and mental handicap. There is a shortage of skilled professionals in mental health, which is critical because for too long this has been a Cinderella area of health care. I hope that the Minister will be able to give us an assurance that money will be available for the employment of the staff who are so essential to the success of this Cinderella area of the national health service.

Ann Keen: I should like to thank hon. and right hon. colleagues for their contribution to this debate on NHS staffing. I cannot apologise for smiling so often throughout the debate; such is my way that I am known often to smile at many hon. Members.
	Since 1997, the NHS has made significant progress in improving the level of health care in this country. The unprecedented level of investment by this Government in staffing in the NHS has been instrumental in bringing this about. I will try to refer to some of the points raised by hon. Members in the short time that I have. The hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr. Bone) has invited me to visit his constituency, and I have agreed—and will continue to agree—to do so. I had the pleasure of meeting his wife when we were away on a trip together, and she had my sympathy on the issue of health care. She might possibly have my sympathy for other reasons, now that I have got to know the hon. Gentleman and the particular style that he has developed in the House. I feel that she might possibly agree with me on that.
	Work force planning has always been critical to the NHS. Having worked in the NHS for more than 25 years, I know how important it is to have the right staffing levels on wards. I remember not having such levels in the '80s and '90s. I also remember training schools being closed. We were told that we were training too many nurses and doctors, and places were cut. In fact, I spoke recently to Dr. Peter Carter, the general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing, and he was happy for me to convey his views. He said:
	"The last 10 years have seen substantial growth in nurse numbers. This has helped address the legacy from the 1980s and 1990s of workload issues".
	At that time, we did not always plan in the way we should have done, and I am aware that officials in the Department of Health take some criticism. Let us also give them praise, however, as they are now working hard on work force planning, as they perhaps wanted to do in the '80s and '90s as well.
	It is exceptionally important to have the right levels not only of doctors and nurses—they always come to the forefront when we talk about the health service—but of physiotherapists and talking therapists, who play a hugely important role, as do staff right across the section, from the cleaners who keep a complex cleaning care programme in place right through to the top docs. The work force is being planned under Lord Ara Darzi's review, under my chairmanship and, most importantly, with the membership of the clinicians themselves, in the sectors that look after our cancer care and our new stroke strategy, which has been welcomed by the all-party parliamentary stroke group as well as by the Stroke Association. Matters relating to cardiac rehabilitation need to be addressed in some areas, and I urge the managers involved to do that.
	While we are discussing managers, let me say that there has been a fall in their number. The last NHS census showed the first fall in management members since the introduction of occupations codes in 1995. However, let me go on to say that managers are exceptionally important to the NHS. We know that without them it can break down, and we know the serious consequences of that. We understand the importance of learning from previous mistakes and of ensuring that all managers and health care professionals are totally committed to providing safe care.
	The hon. Member for Macclesfield (Sir Nicholas Winterton) spoke about his being the vice-president of the Royal College of Midwives. I watched his career with interest when he served on the Health Select Committee, particularly in respect of his involvement with "Changing Childbirth". He was such a progressive thinker that he was not allowed to continue to practise. The General Secretary of the Royal College of Midwives, Karlene Davis, would work closely with the hon. Gentleman. She also works diligently on work force planning and has said how difficult it is to recruit midwives at the moment. We all take that very seriously.
	It is the duty of us all to praise midwifery and the safety of childbirth in this country, which is indeed one of the safest places for the delivery of babies. Our birth rate is currently increasing, and I believe it nearly always does under a Labour Government. When people are satisfied and feel confident that they will continue to be employed—either within or outside the NHS—they are always happy to increase their families. It is no coincidence when that happens.
	I hope that some hon. Members will reflect further on some of the words they used, particularly regarding heart disease. Our success rate should only be praised, so I particularly ask the hon. Member for Guildford (Anne Milton) to reflect more on her comments.

Anne Milton: rose—

Ann Keen: I have very little time left, so the hon. Lady might want to see me at some later time.
	Our stroke strategy and our cancer plan have been welcomed throughout the voluntary sector—and most importantly of all, by patients themselves. Patients' satisfaction with the NHS is second to none. The work force in our NHS is also second to none. We need to do more to improve it, so we need to work together in the House. I would like to see a consensus on the point that the NHS as it stands today provides the best health care in the world. That is true only because of NHS staff. Let us all work together not to praise them only today but always. That is different from the 1980s and '90s, when I experienced marches and collection buckets for NHS equipment. No one is doing that today because we have a Labour Government looking after the NHS.
	 Question put and agreed to.
	 Resolved,
	That this House has considered the matter of NHS staffing.

European Scrutiny (Standing Orders)

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Before we start the debate, it may help the House if I set out how our proceedings on the European scrutiny motion will be handled. There will be a combined debate on the motion and on all selected amendments. The business of the House order governing proceedings allows any selected amendment to be moved at the conclusion of the debate. Amendments will be called in order, followed, finally, by the main question.

Helen Goodman: I beg to move,
	That the following Amendments to the Standing Orders shall have effect for the remainder of the current Parliament:
	 (A) Amendments to Standing Order No. 119 (European Standing Committees)
	Line 2, leave out 'European Standing Committees' and insert 'European Committees'.
	Line 13, leave out paragraph (3) and insert:
	'(3) Each European Committee shall consist of thirteen Members nominated by the Committee of Selection in respect of any European Union document which stands referred to it, and the Committee of Selection may nominate the same membership in respect of several documents.
	(3A) In nominating the members of a European Committee, the Committee of Selection shall have regard to the qualifications of the Members nominated and to the composition of the House; and where practicable it shall nominate at least two members of the European Scrutiny Committee and at least two members of the select committee appointed under Standing Order No. 152 whose responsibilities most closely relate to the subject matter of the document or documents.'
	Line 30, leave out from 'below' to end of paragraph (5).
	Line 41, insert new paragraph as follows:
	'(6A) The chairman may permit a member of the European Scrutiny Committee appointed to the committee under paragraph (3A) above to make a brief statement of no more than five minutes, at the beginning of the sitting, explaining that Committee's decision to refer the document or documents to a European Committee.'
	( B) Amendments to nomenclature in the Standing Orders
	Leave out 'European Standing Committees' in all other places where they occur in the Standing Orders and insert 'European Committees'.
	Proper scrutiny by the House of legislative proposals and other important documents from the European Union is extremely important. As we all know, decisions taken in Europe affect many aspects of our lives. Government and Parliament must play a full part in those decisions.
	Today, I set out a new approach to scrutinising the way in which the Government do business in Europe. The motions will encourage a fuller debate on Government position on policy issues that are affected by European legislation.
	In the past, the European dimension of policy issues has often mistakenly been considered to be separate from United Kingdom domestic policy. As a result of that disengagement, confidence in scrutiny of the Government's position on European issues has suffered, which has led to long-standing criticism of the processes.
	In its report on European scrutiny, the Modernisation Committee made recommendations for reform of the existing scrutiny process to reinvigorate the House's consideration of European Union business. The Bill to enable the United Kingdom to ratify the Lisbon treaty, which modernises EU structures, is currently in Committee. There have been a good many debates on the Floor of the House and there are several more to come, but we are here today to debate other issues.
	On 25 October, during a debate on a range of procedural reforms, the Leader of the House accepted a proposal from the European Scrutiny Committee that, within three months, we present proposals to improve the EU scrutiny system. Four successive Leaders of the House have drafted proposals, and the Modernisation Committee reported in 2005. There is widespread agreement across the House that we need to improve the current systems.

Frank Field: The German Parliament has calculated that 60 per cent. of its legislation initiates in Brussels. The same must apply to this country. In those circumstances, should not our procedures go way beyond what my hon. Friend is proposing today? Clearly the time that we spend in the House of Commons ought to be devoted mainly to European as opposed to home matters.

Helen Goodman: I am not sure that what my right hon. Friend says is strictly accurate because of the role of the Länder in Germany, but I hope that as I set out my proposals—some of which are on the Order Paper, while others stray into administrative matters—he will accept that they will lead to real improvements.

James Clappison: The hon. Lady is making a good start, but may I pursue the question put to her by the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field)? I asked the same question of one of her Cabinet colleagues during our debate on the single market. Will she tell us what proportion of our law comes from EU institutions?

Helen Goodman: I must confess that the figure is not at the front of my mind at this moment, but I hope that by the time we reach the end of the debate I shall be able to give the hon. Gentleman the answer.

Simon Hughes: May I ask a procedural question? The hon. Lady was kind enough to consult colleagues throughout the House before presenting the motion tabled by the Leader of the House. Would she be willing to place in the Library, or make available in some other way, the responses given to her during that consultation, so that people can compare the formal views represented to her with the proposals on the Order Paper?

Helen Goodman: As the hon. Gentleman knows, the consultations—in which he took part—were largely informal. I hope to be able to provide some further information that will satisfy him.
	Consideration of European documents in the House of Commons is currently subject to the European scrutiny resolution of 1998, under which Ministers cannot agree to proposals in the Council of Ministers that have not cleared the House's scrutiny processes, subject to certain exceptions.

William Cash: I am sorry to have to raise a matter that is of some concern to me. The hon. Lady mentioned the November 1998 resolution. The European Scrutiny Committee stated unequivocally that the Prime Minister must secure a full debate on the Floor of the House of Commons before signing the treaty of Lisbon. I should make it clear that I am referring here to the opinion of the intergovernmental conference. That document was not cleared at that time, and no debate was held specifically on the intergovernmental conference opinion, in contravention of the scrutiny process. I should be grateful if the hon. Lady explained why that happened. There is no doubt that it did happen; I am referring to the opinion, not the treaty.

Helen Goodman: I understand that the hon. Gentleman takes an earnest and sincere interest in this matter, and I know that he has taken part in the series of debates in Committee of the whole House on the Lisbon treaty Bill. I am sorry if he is not satisfied, but the fact is that we are addressing a separate matter this afternoon.
	The House's scrutiny processes are underpinned by a system of Committee consideration set out in Standing Orders. Documents must be deposited with the European Scrutiny Committee, usually within two working days of publication by the Commission, with a Government explanatory memorandum deposited within a further 10 days. The Committee examines documents for legal or political importance. It might then, after exchanges with relevant Ministers, clear the document or recommend it for debate in a European Standing Committee or on the Floor of the House.

David Heathcoat-Amory: The Modernisation Committee report to which the hon. Lady referred, which was chaired by the Leader of the House, said that scrutiny of EU business
	"should be in the mainstream of our political life."
	Should it not therefore be done in public? When I asked her that at questions earlier today, she said it should not be done in the full glare of publicity. Why should not part of the mainstream of our political life be conducted in the full glare of publicity? What have the Government got to hide about European business that means that it all has to be done in private? Why is she not recommending that Standing Orders be changed to permit us to meet in public?

Helen Goodman: The Government have nothing to hide, and I shall come on to the amendments towards the end of my speech.
	The Committee examines documents for legal or political importance. It will then sometimes clear them, or recommend them for further debate. Standing Orders provide for three permanent European Standing Committees, to which documents can be referred, with 13 members each.

Kelvin Hopkins: On the recent intervention by the right hon. Member for Wells (Mr. Heathcoat-Amory), one of the advantages of that being in private is that officials can give advice that is blunt and to the point; that advice might not be the same were it in public. Does my hon. Friend accept that as being an advantage?

Helen Goodman: What my hon. Friend says is borne of his experience on the European Scrutiny Committee, and it is clear that there are contrary views on this matter, but I will now make a little more progress and come back to it later.
	Any MP may attend or speak in the proceedings of the European Standing Committees, but the system of permanent membership fell into disrepair because of the excessive commitment required of some Members. Consequently, the House is operating under a temporary system, whereby each European Standing Committee meets with an ad hoc membership appointed by the Committee of Selection.
	Last year, the European Scrutiny Committee examined approximately 1,100 documents, identifying nearly 500 as of sufficient importance to justify comment in a report and recommending nearly 80 for further debate, including five for debate on the Floor of the House. The system has strengths: in particular, it means that every document of any significance is examined quickly; it means that difficult or unclear points can be discussed between a permanent Committee and the relevant Department; it means that important issues can be identified and debated further in the House, with any Member able to participate; it means that the House can come to a view on every document so debated; and it means that the Minister cannot, without having to explain why he or she had had to do so, agree a proposal without those steps having been taken.

William Cash: rose—

Helen Goodman: If I may, I shall make a little more progress.
	The system is far from perfect. The Modernisation Committee's 2005 report concluded that scrutiny of EU business
	"tends to be seen as a minority activity, of interest to only a few Members".
	The following specific issues have been raised: Members feel that they do not get early sight of EU proposals, although that is improving; most Members do not find EU discussions relating to specific issues to be very visible and they are not able to participate even where they have a specific interest or expertise; the process for questioning is unhelpful to both Ministers and those doing the questioning; Members do not get the papers they need, when they need them; and there is a lack of continuity between the different stages of scrutiny.
	Since becoming Deputy Leader of the House, I have continued the search for consensus on how we should make progress and have held a wide range of meetings across the House and outside it.

William Cash: The Deputy Leader of the House referred to the fact that when a European document comes back to the Floor of the House it can be agreed. She will be aware that if a document is amended by a European Standing Committee—I know that that has happened on a number of occasions, because I have been on the Committee in question—that decision is immediately reversed on the Floor of the House. I am just a naive, unknowing kind of person, so will she explain to me why a European document never suffers a reverse on the Floor of the House?

Helen Goodman: As I said to the hon. Gentleman earlier, I shall come to the amendments on the Order Paper at the end of my speech. He will have to be a little more patient, if he can bear it.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Michael Connarty), with support from colleagues on the European Scrutiny Committee, has tabled an amendment that would allow the changes to run only for the remainder of the current year, rather than until the end of the current Parliament. As I have said, the proposals are experimental. It may be that the rest of the current year is long enough to assess their effectiveness, and I am happy to accept his amendment.
	Let us turn to the improvements to the system that I am proposing, the first of which relates to the timetable. In 2005, the Modernisation Committee recommended that the Government undertake to alert the House at an early stage of consultation exercises, and the Government accept it.

Greg Knight: It would be ungracious not to acknowledge that what is being proposed is better than we have had in the past. I am happy to place that on record. The Deputy Leader of the House agreed to accept the amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Mr. Connarty). That indicates that even if she achieves the rest of her business today, she is willing to take on board ideas that are made after today, with a view to introducing further proposals in due course. Will she confirm that that is the case?

Helen Goodman: I am happy to confirm that. The Leader of the House's office is a listening department. We are always glad to hear from Members and to build on our current position.
	We believe that there also needs to be better scrutiny of the annual Commission work plan. The most appropriate way to do that would be through short debates in Westminster Hall on the annual policy strategy and on the legislative and work programme. Such debates could be expected to fall in March and November.
	Our proposals do not set out any major change to the European Scrutiny Committee. However, it is noticeable that the parliamentary calendars of Brussels and the UK are different. A more effective approach might be if the Committee were regularly able to meet before the House returns in October, as it did last year. Ultimately that is a matter for the Committee itself.
	I turn to the composition of the European Standing Committees. The proposal before the House would enable ad hoc appointments to be more targeted than has been the case hitherto. Out of 13 members, it is proposed that two places should be filled by members of the European Scrutiny Committee and a further two by members of the relevant departmental Select Committee, and that at least five members would be spokesmen or Whips. Overall, at least nine out of 13 places would thus be filled by Members specifically identified for what they can contribute to debate on a particular document. Furthermore, hon. Members can make representations to their party Whips to take part in a European Committee debate in which they are interested. In many ways, that should provide a more informed debate than those based on the old core membership model, partly because of the wide remits that they had, partly because some of the core members on the permanent Committees felt that they had been press-ganged.

Andrew MacKinlay: I welcome what my hon. Friend has said. It is a matter for this Chamber and for the political parties. One of the flaws in the old system—one of the reasons there was an apparent, but not intended, lack of interest—was that Members were not given enough notice of subjects. We need a system whereby people can go to their party Whips and say, "I am interested in this. When you nominate, can I be in the frame?" Hon. Members will need to be given some notice, because people cannot be in two places at once. It is a time scale problem.

Helen Goodman: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. That is why we have looked at the way that papers are circulated and notice is given, as I shall explain later. Of course, it is not for me in my role as Deputy Leader of the House to make suggestions to other parties about how their Whips Offices should operate, but I hope that they have heard my hon. Friend's remarks.

Kelvin Hopkins: I am sure that my hon. Friend will agree that one of the reasons hon. Members are less interested and engaged than they might be is the enormous volume of turgid Euro-speak in the documents. One of the great advantages of the private part of the European Scrutiny Committee is that we have simple summaries by officials of the House that state precisely what the document is about, what we need to focus on and what their conclusions are. They are a quick read, and hon. Members could well do with such summaries in the European Standing Committee, too.

Helen Goodman: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his comments. I hope that his views, which are based on practice, will be heard by other hon. Members who are interested in that aspect of the matter.
	In order to maintain all the necessary flexibilities, including the need to maintain the right party balance, the vehicle for delivering appointments to the European Standing Committee is the Committee of Selection—as with all other appointments to Committees. We also see two ways in which the actual proceedings of the European Committees can be made more effective. First, we are agreeing to the 2005 recommendation of the Modernisation Committee that there should be an opportunity for a brief opening statement at the beginning of a Committee sitting by a European Scrutiny Committee member to point out why the document or documents were referred.
	Secondly, the period of questioning on a ministerial statement can often be unsatisfactory because members are called to ask a single question at a time, leading to a broken series of unrelated questions. It would be more effective for questioning to take place in a more Select Committee-like style, with individual members being able to ask a series of related questions in one stretch. So, I am grateful to the Chairman of Ways and Means for agreeing, through the Chairmen's Panel, to advise all Chairmen to make that the standard way for conducting the questioning on statements in European Committees. I hope that hon. Members across the House will find that useful.
	The Government have also been looking at ways in which Members might be kept better aware of developments on EU issues through the flow of documentation. One way forward is for Members to indicate in advance to the Vote Office the specific matters on which they would be interested to receive European documents. Those documents could be sent directly to the Member concerned without the need to fill in one of the regular and often rather impenetrable yellow lists of EU documents that are available from the Vote Office. I am grateful to the Deliverer of the Vote for his work in making that possible.
	A further step that is being taken is for the forthcoming business before the European Committees to be listed in the daily Order Paper along with other future business. I hope that Members will find that a helpful way forward.
	I am terribly sorry, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but I have lost the place in my speech. While I wait for the rest of it, let me turn to the amendments tabled by the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May).
	Amendment (c) relates to motions taken on the Floor of the House after a debate in Standing Committee. I understand that the intention is to require that the motion tabled on the Floor of the House is the same as the one agreed by the Standing Committee and that a debate can be held if the Government then table an amendment to it.
	The amendment does not achieve either aim. For example, it does not require the motion tabled in the House to be the one agreed by the Committee, but the Government recognise the long running view expressed by previous Committees, including by the Modernisation Committee in 2005, that the motion tabled should be the one agreed by the Committee. If the right hon. Member for Maidenhead will agree not to press the amendment, the Government will undertake to proceed in practice in the way the Opposition seek.
	That would mean that, if a Standing Committee agreed a motion different from the one proposed to it by the Government, the motion tabled in the House for agreement would be the one agreed by the Committee. There should be the possibility of a debate if the Government then seek to amend the motion. If any such debate is required, there should be provision for the first vote to be on the form of words agreed by the Committee, rather than on the Government's amendment. That is what happens on Opposition days.
	I turn now to the right hon. Member for Maidenhead's amendment (e), which deals with the conduct of the work of the European Scrutiny Committee in public. It stems from a request first made in 2003 by the ESC in relation to its sifting of European documents for debate. The Modernisation Committee considered the matter in its 2005 report and concluded that the ESC should have the power to decide whether to meet in public for that purpose for an experimental period.
	The ESC has considered the proposal, and taken a different view. I agree with the right hon. Member for Maidenhead that, in general, there is a good case for the important work of sifting to be done in public. However, amendment (e) is not limited to the formal sifting of EU documents undertaken by the ESC: rather, it applies to all of the Committee's proceedings and so goes much wider than anything envisaged by the ESC or the Modernisation Committee.
	For example, amendment (e) would mean that a discussion in the ESC about internal communications, dates, summer recess work or the order of witnesses would have to end in a vote. If the right hon. Member for Maidenhead will agree not to press the amendment, the Government will come back to the House with a revised form of words providing for the ESC to have the power to decide whether to meet in public for the purposes of sifting documents.
	A further step being taken is for the forthcoming business before the European Committees to be listed in the daily Order Paper, along with other future business. I hope that hon. Members will find that helpful, and I am grateful to Mr. Speaker for his authorisation of this measure. If the motions are approved, I shall also send hon. Members a resource pack so that they are aware of the support available for their European scrutiny work.

Simon Hughes: The Deputy Leader of the House has said that the Government accept amendment (a), tabled by the Chairman of the ESC and others. Do they accept his amendment (b) as well?

Helen Goodman: My understanding is that my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk has withdrawn amendment (b), but the Government entirely accept the intention behind it. We will use our best endeavours to ensure that when the Committee of Selection meets, the usual channels will have listened to the views of the Chairman of the European Scrutiny Committee on which hon. Members are best placed to take forward each European Standing Committee. Taken together, the measures that I am proposing will be of real benefit to the House. They will help to improve the accessibility of the processes to all Members, improve the effectiveness of the Government's scrutiny of European business, and make it clearer to the public what we are doing. As I have said, the measures will always be open to further review, and the motion envisages that the Standing Order changes will have effect only until the end of the year. I invite Members to support the motion.

Theresa May: I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak in this debate, and not just about the motion in the name of the Leader of the House and the amendments that I tabled. I start by welcoming the fact that the Government have taken the initiative to improve the way in which the House scrutinises European legislation. The system has needed reform for some time; indeed, the need for reform was pointed out three years ago by the Modernisation Committee, and successive Leaders of the House have been encouraged to act on its report. I congratulate the Leader of the House and the Deputy Leader of the House on grasping the nettle. I also thank the Deputy Leader of the House for her courtesy in consulting me on the issue, for talking to my hon. Friend the Member for North-West Cambridgeshire (Mr. Vara)—the shadow Deputy Leader of the House—and me about the issues, and for her willingness to try to find a resolution on the issues that I have raised.
	I also congratulate the Chairman of the European Scrutiny Committee, the hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Michael Connarty), because it was the pressure that he put on the Government at the end of last year that led to the Government undertaking the exercise, to work being done, and to the motions before us today. I welcome the fact that the Government are prepared to act on the issue and have made proposals that would lead to a better procedure, as my right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire (Mr. Knight) said, but I am deeply disappointed by the result of the exercise. I do not believe that the proposal goes far enough. It is a bit of a damp squib, and wider reform is needed if we are to resolve the problem of the democratic deficit in our consideration of European Union legislation.
	As the Deputy Leader of the House knows, I have made a number of proposals on how that democratic deficit can be overcome, and I will refer to some of them. First, I should like to comment on the context of the debate—the House's scrutiny of European legislation. Most people's knowledge of what happens in Westminster is probably confined to a 30-second snippet of Prime Minister's questions each week. Some will be vaguely aware of the daily work that Select Committees and Public Bill Committees do—discussing key issues, dissecting legislation and so forth—but few will realise the true extent of that work. If that is most people's view of Parliament's work on domestic legislation, let us just think how few people have any understanding at all of what happens to European legislation, beyond feeling that there is too much of it and that we should not be ruled by Brussels.
	However, between 50 and 70 per cent. of UK laws originate in the European Union. The EU produces four pieces of secondary legislation a week, and every year more than 1,000 European documents are deposited in Parliament. Only a handful of them receive full debate in the House. Dealing with EU legislation is clearly an enormous part of the House's work, yet our system of scrutiny for that legislation is woefully inadequate. I must make it clear that that is nothing to do with the members of the European Scrutiny Committee, who diligently carry out their role as best they can within the current system. However, the Committee lacks the teeth that it needs properly to hold the Government to account. Too often, Parliament is ignored and its decisions are overridden.
	The only formal role that national Parliaments have in the European legislation process is in the implementation of European directives, regulations, legislation and decisions. Parliaments' only influence, therefore, is based on their right to hold to account members of their national Governments, so the purpose of our system of scrutiny is to ensure that our Parliament has the opportunity to influence and hold to account UK Ministers for their decisions in the Council of Ministers. It is in that context that I am deeply disappointed by the proposals tabled by the Leader of the House, because that demographic deficit—that gap in our system—is not redressed by the motion.

William Cash: Will my right hon. Friend give way?

Theresa May: On European matters I always give way to my hon. Friend with some trepidation.

William Cash: I intervene merely in a spirit of helpful and constructive suggestion. My right hon. Friend is talking about a situation where national Parliaments are considering matters dealt with by national Ministers in the Council of Ministers and, therefore, the exercise of qualified majority voting. Will she bear in mind the fact that the decision taken on the Floor of the House about any such decision has to be related to the national interest as expressed by a significant number of people voting in the debate? Does she understand my point?

Theresa May: I may or may not have understood my hon. Friend's point; over the years I have discovered that often when I think I have understood his point I have not understood it as well as I might. He seemed to be suggesting that our national Parliament needs to be able to express a view on the national interest to Ministers before they take issues—

William Cash: In effect, we need something in the nature of a veto. If enough Members of the House seriously disagree with a decision of the Council of Ministers on a document, the view expressed by the House should, if necessary, override the decision taken in the Council of Ministers.

Theresa May: Perhaps my hon. Friend could wait for my comments about the scrutiny reserve, as he may find that they address the point he has raised.

Kelvin Hopkins: The right hon. Lady is making useful points about the extent to which we properly scrutinise European legislation, but does she agree that the real problem is the strict and rigidly disciplined party system in our Parliament? The excessive power of the Executive over the legislature is the real problem; we are whipped, so even if we have strong concerns, things do not change.

Theresa May: The whipping system in the House is a different issue. I have said on record that in general I should like the House to be able to hold a larger number of debates on motions that are subject to a free vote—although when I say that, the Whips normally start twitching. However, the issue we are addressing and which lies at the heart of questions about democratic deficit is the system that we use to scrutinise European legislation. There is much that we can do to improve the system, but it is not in the motion proposed by the Leader of the House.

David Heath: The hon. Member for Stone (Mr. Cash) was describing a situation in which Parliament does not agree with something that comes through the European Council. One of the beneficial aspects of the treaty of Lisbon may be the idea that national Parliaments could intervene to say that something should be subject to subsidiarity, but I have nowhere seen a clear view expressed as to how Parliament could exercise such a power free of the Executive. Has the right hon. Lady given any thought to that process?

Theresa May: Our view is that the proposed system—the yellow and orange card system—is full of problems. Earlier, the Deputy Leader of the House said that she would be willing to look further at how Parliament deals with European matters. Perhaps the issue raised by the hon. Gentleman is one of those that she intends to take on board.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Stone may be pleased to hear that I had intended, before his intervention, to make the point that the House has no real power over positions taken by Ministers, and that if a Standing Committee or even the whole House objects to a European proposal, the Government can still support it in the Council of Ministers. That is the case because the scrutiny reserve system that we have is too weak. It is not defined in statute and Ministers have the power to override it. All they have to do is give an explanation to the Scrutiny Committee as to why they have chosen to do so.
	Since figures were first collected in 2001, the override has been used 346 times. Some controversial pieces of legislation have been exempted in that way, including on the EU arrest warrant and the creation of the European Defence Agency. There are many excuses for Ministers to ignore the scrutiny reserve. The reserve resolution states that the Government can agree a proposal if it is
	"confidential, routine or trivial or is substantially the same as a proposal on which scrutiny has been completed"
	or if the Scrutiny Committee
	"has indicated that agreement need not be withheld pending consideration"
	by the House.
	A Minister can also agree a proposal
	"if he decides that for special reasons agreement should be given; but he should explain his reasons"
	to the Committee and to the House at the first opportunity. Sadly, there are too many examples where Ministers override that scrutiny reserve. That is why it should be put on a statutory basis.

William Cash: My right hon. Friend spoke, understandably and correctly, about the scrutiny reserve in respect of a Minister who is about to make a decision in the Council of Ministers. I was referring to something significantly different—the situation in which a decision has been taken in the Council of Ministers, including our Minister, but we override it because the House takes a different view when it gets to know about it.

Theresa May: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for further clarification of his point. The comments that I shall go on to make may edge towards the situation that he describes, but I suspect that they will not go quite so far.

Helen Goodman: I am grateful to the right hon. Lady for giving way on the subject of overrides, which I agree is important. I draw her attention to the fact that they frequently happen because of the long summer recess, and also because they are frequently on common foreign and security policy instruments—for example, the common position extending the mandate for the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. In 2006, of the 29 overrides in the House of Commons, 14 were on instruments that were agreed at Councils in late July or September and early October when the House was not sitting.

Theresa May: The Deputy Leader of the House is trying to explain away the overrides that take place. I entirely agree that there is a problem with when the European Scrutiny Committee sits. The 12-week gap in the summer recess does cause a problem. That is an issue that needs to be addressed. As she said in her speech, when Committees sit is a matter for those Committees, but the issue must be examined.
	There is a point of principle involved in the Government's treatment and override of the Scrutiny Committee. As I understand it, the hon. Lady is saying that that is a result of practical circumstances, but issues such as the EU arrest warrant and the creation of the European Defence Agency do not fall into that category. Those were significant, controversial issues. The House needs to make Ministers more accountable to it for the decisions that they are taking on the vast amount of legislation that affects our constituents, but on which the House rarely has proper debate.

David Heathcoat-Amory: It is disappointing that the Deputy Leader of the House should try to excuse errant Departments, rather than stand up for the rights of the House, which is her job.
	May I remind my right hon. Friend of another abuse? Ministers are persistently reaching what they call a general approach in the Council of Ministers to get around the scrutiny reserve. They are not allowed to reach agreement while the matter in question is still under scrutiny, but they claim that a general approach exempts them from that. That has been explicitly censured in another place by the equivalent Committee, which said that it did not accept the Government's view that agreement to a general approach does not constitute a breach of the scrutiny reserve resolution. Does my right hon. Friend agree with that, and will she recommend a change to our procedures to prevent such things from happening in future?

Theresa May: I certainly agree that it is disappointing and worrying to see how Ministers find their way around the requirements laid on them when there are scrutiny reserves, in respect of both the override and the circumstances set out by my right hon. Friend.
	There is a real need for the House to go further than is being proposed today by the Deputy Leader of the House in setting out changes to our procedures and to the powers of our Committees—the European Scrutiny Committee and the Standing Committees, such as they are at the moment. I hope that within that process we would be able to find ways to ensure that the views of the House inform what Ministers do in Brussels and that Ministers recognise that they should pay more attention to the views of this national Parliament. They should not just think that they can go off to Brussels, agree what they like and come back and say, "We're terribly sorry, but we didn't have time to talk to you."

James Clappison: Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind the fact that in my short experience in the European Scrutiny Committee I have felt exactly the same about the general approach as my right hon. Friend the Member for Wells (Mr. Heathcoat-Amory)? I have been left with the impression that Ministers are simply subverting the scrutiny process by agreeing to a general approach. What is more, again in my short experience on the Committee, there have been cases of Ministers who have been repeatedly warned not to reach a position, but have gone on and done so without any of the excuses that have been put forward, such as long holidays. They have simply ignored the Committee.

Theresa May: My hon. Friend makes a powerful and valid point.
	As I said, the scrutiny reserve should be put on a statutory basis so that Ministers are required to come to the Committee before negotiations at the European Council and cannot override it. My proposal is based on the Danish model. I recognise that there are some rigidities in that model and that it would be necessary to give the Committee a degree of flexibility so that Ministers could set out a negotiating position before they went to the Council. I accept that it makes sense for those particular discussions to be held in private so that the Government do not give the UK's negotiating position away. The minutes could be made public after the negotiations, however.
	My proposal would work along similar lines to the Danish model, although, as I said, the Committee would need to recognise the occasions on which Ministers needed to be given a degree of flexibility. The system would also need to be backed by clear sanctions so that if the Minister broke the reserve—if he or she came to an agreement with the Committee and went on to negotiate a different position—there could be some kind of formal censure. The crucial thing is to put Parliament back in the driving seat and make sure that we help to reduce the democratic deficit by ensuring that Ministers are responsible and accountable in Parliament for the decisions that they take.

Kelvin Hopkins: Will the right hon. Lady give way?

Theresa May: I shall, but I must then make quite a bit of progress.

Kelvin Hopkins: The right hon. Lady said that some discussions should take place in private so that Ministers would have at least a chance to negotiate behind the scenes. Does she agree that minutes could be made of meetings at the European Council, at which Prime Ministers and other leaders meet in secret, no minutes are taken and crucial decisions are often made? Perhaps that could be done under a 30-year rule arrangement. In that way, we would have some record of what actually happens inside the European Council.

Theresa May: The hon. Gentleman has again made a powerful point about transparency. I have some sympathy with what he has said. One of the problems about the relationship with the European Union is that precise issue of the secret negotiations that are perceived to take place and the inability of people to have access to what is going on, feel that they are part of it, comment on it and hold people to account.
	I perceive another problem with the current system, which I have attempted to overcome through amendment (c)—the Government's ability to ignore amendments that are made by the Committees. When documents are referred, the resolution that comes to the House will not be the resolution agreed by the Committee but the Government's resolution, even when the Committee disagreed with the Government on their position, and the vote can be taken immediately without debate. I noted carefully what the Deputy Leader of the House said, and she is correct about my intention. The amendment would ensure that the resolution that is brought before the House is the resolution of the Committee and that where that differs from the Government's position the Government would have an opportunity to amend it, but that the Opposition day procedure should apply such that the Committee's resolution is the one that is first voted on. That would, again, put the Committee more in the driving seat than the Government. The hon. Lady said that my amendment would not quite provide for what I intended. Having had another look at it and some further discussions, I think that it may, but in the interests of trying to ensure that we get this right I welcome her offer to go ahead and think about a means of putting this into practice having accepted those principles.
	Amendment (e) relates to the European Scrutiny Committee meeting in private. As I said earlier, one of the problems for many people is that because they do not have access, they are unable to see what is going on in many of these debates about European legislation. My amendment would reverse that assumption by assuming that the Committee should sit in public, but would still have the power to determine that it would sit in private for particular meetings or for part of a meeting. This issue has been raised on many occasions in this House, particularly in business questions; indeed my right hon. Friend the Member for Wells (Mr. Heathcoat-Amory) raised it this very day. There are strong feelings about this, and it would be right to make it the assumption and the norm that the Committee sits in public but give it the power to choose to sit in private for whole meetings or for part of them.
	I am sorry that the Deputy Leader of the House has not taken on board some of my other proposals. She is attempting to change the membership of the Standing Committees, which, to abide by the new nomenclature, will now be called simply European Committees. However, the fact that there are only three Committees means that they can have only very limited expertise, although they cover a vast range of topics. Standing Committee B deals with the Treasury, including Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs, Department for Work and Pensions, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the Department for International Development, the Home Office, and other matters not otherwise allocated to the other two Committees. That is a vast area for a Committee to cover.
	The Government have taken up one of my proposals, which was to have a sort of cross-fertilisation between the Standing Committees and departmental Select Committees to ensure a better flow of knowledge and expertise. I would prefer to go further. There is some merit in exploring the wider use of Select Committees or perhaps specialist sub-groups in Select Committees where Members have built up an expertise in a particular policy area and would therefore be able to bring that expertise to bear if issues from Scrutiny Committee documents were referred to them rather than being referred to a European Committee set up for the purpose.

William Cash: Does my right hon. Friend agree that there could be dangers if a departmental Select Committee, however experienced, were to make decisions, with the centre of gravity on that Committee, if it did not necessarily understand the nature of the legislative procedures and some of the complications that can arise? I offer that as a helpful suggestion.

Theresa May: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. It sounded to me as if he was offering his expertise to every departmental Select Committee to explain the legislative process to them when they consider these matters.

William Cash: That is not impossible.

Theresa May: For the benefit of the  Hansard reporters, my hon. Friend says that that is not impossible.
	Another matter of concern to me is the lack of time given to debating European issues on the Floor of the House. The Deputy Leader of the House said in her wider proposals, outside the motion, that she will be looking to have two extra debates each year in Westminster Hall on the Council's programme. That would take us forward a little, but we should consider other innovative ideas. For example, perhaps there should be questions to the Minister for Europe, allowing for a specific time when questions on European matters could be put to the Minister responsible.
	I am glad that there are going to be further opportunities to consider changes to the system because there are some real ways in which—

Peter Lilley: I am extremely grateful to my right hon. Friend for giving way. She has proceeded with great calm in considering a matter that should surely generate great heat. Why has she not addressed the fact that this process is a charade as long as we have a Government who ignore and despise what Select Committees say? On the central issue of whether they keep their election promises, the European Scrutiny Committee said that their excuse for not doing so was completely bogus. They ignored it. Another Select Committee said the same thing; they ignored that, too. What possible use is there in fiddling around with the procedures in a minor way when the Government treat Parliament and its Committees—Committees with a Labour Chairman and Labour majority—with total and complete contempt?

Theresa May: The Government's approach, which was set out correctly by my right hon. Friend, is not in itself a reason for us not to do what we can with the systems of this House in order to improve them and to make Ministers more accountable. He referred to examples where the Government have ignored Select Committee views on this issue. Of course, every Member of the Government is ignoring the mandate given to them when they were elected to Parliament by refusing to give a referendum on the treaty to the British people. I am tempted to say that if they are prepared to ignore their mandate and what they put in their manifestos, it is little wonder that they ignore the views of Select Committees.
	I support the Government's attempts to take the matter forward and improve our system of European scrutiny through their proposals. They could have gone further, and I would like to see the House go further at some stage. We should have a statutory scrutiny reserve so that Ministers would have to gain parliamentary approval before negotiations in the Council of Ministers. There should also be new powers for MPs to challenge the European Scrutiny Committee and debates on the Floor of the House. Perhaps such a debate could take place if a large number of MPs required it. I would prefer the House to go further on the question of adaptations to the Standing Committee system to bring more expertise into it. As I said, there are other innovative ideas, such as oral questions to the Minister for Europe.
	I am grateful to the Government and I welcome the fact that they have undertaken this exercise, but their proposals will not remove the democratic deficit that lies at the heart of our relationship with the European Union.

Michael Connarty: I do not know whether I can be brief, but I shall try not to keep the House too long.
	I welcome the progress that has been made on this issue since it was taken over by the Deputy Leader of the House. I commend her. She has laboured long in the vineyard, and I know that when it comes to European matters, the vineyard is a very dry one. I thank her for her generosity in accepting amendment (a) in my name and those of my colleagues from the European Scrutiny Committee. I know that I cannot withdraw an amendment that is on the Order Paper, but in the spirit of the way that we have been doing business since the Deputy Leader of the House and others became engaged in the process, I shall not press amendment (b).
	I want to thank several people. The Leader of the House obviously takes the matter seriously. As the shadow Leader of the House said, it has been on the agenda for at least three years. Indeed, before the Modernisation Committee produced its report, submissions were made from several quarters, including our Committee, that were not accepted and were perhaps too radical at the time. I hope that, in the distant future, someone will pick up on our suggestions to change the system substantially and move from the current Committee system, in line with the recommendations of the European Scrutiny Committee, which I did not chair at the time. I did, however, support the recommendations.
	The idea that our system is flawed and imperfect is not shared by other countries in the European Union. Only four countries have gone down the mandating road: Denmark, Finland, Sweden and now Slovenia, although it has still to perfect its system. In our understanding and experience, when something is made so rigid, the first thing that people do is to find a way round it. That is what happens in jurisdictions that have a mandating system. They encourage others to move in Council things that they have been mandated not to accept and then they blame other countries, including us—we have been caught out in that way—for moving against and gaining, by qualified majority voting, the proposal that their Government did not want them to vote for. That is one method of getting around the system—there are many others.
	We are regarded as probably the best non-mandating Parliament of the other 23 countries. We are so highly regarded that Macedonia, which wishes to join the European Union but has been criticised by the Commission, has asked the Clerk to our Committee to assist it to build a system of European scrutiny based on ours. When travelling, our Committee goes on a presidency visit and then to see an aspirant country. Macedonia has been soundly criticised for not having a parliamentary system that allows proper scrutiny across the board but hanging on to possibly ethnic groupings in debates in that country—which was at war internally, across its ethnic divide, not long ago. There are many good examples of our practices, and we look to improve them further.
	As I said, people who have helped us include the Leader of the House and the Deputy Leader of the House. I wish publicly and on the record to thank the shadow Leader of the House and her deputy, the hon. Member for North-West Cambridgeshire (Mr. Vara), who have engaged with the process seriously. I have read the pamphlet that the shadow Leader of the House produced. It contains some good items. It is like the curate's egg in that nothing is ever perfect, but I hope that we can discuss some of its good ideas outside the Chamber.
	I thank the usual channels. The Government and Opposition Chief Whips have worked diligently to try to find a way forward, with assistance from other Members who form part of the usual channels, and we have made progress.
	I thank the Chair of the Committee of Selection, who made serious representations to the Liaison Committee, which have helped us to deal with amendment (b), and the Chair and members of the Liaison Committee, who are, of course, the Chairs of the Select Committees. They have said that they are worried about the proposal because it is different from Standing Order No. 119, which provided for fixed membership. We argued that a fixed membership would have more experience as a result of permanently dealing with the business and having set agendas, which happened under Standing Order No. 119. However, the Chairs of the Select Committees are willing to take a chance and try out the proposal. It may impose on some of their members an extra commitment that they do not want.
	The proposal would effect something that we have believed should be done for at least nine years, which is the time that I have served on the European Scrutiny Committee: engage the Select Committees, which have subject and departmental responsibilities, in the European debate. That is important because ultimately the Departments will legislate. What comes from Europe does not get passed in Europe; that must happen here. The Select Committees must therefore engage with it more closely.
	I sometimes get the feeling that the only people who are supposed to get involved in European matters are members of the European Scrutiny Committee. However, that is not only our job, but that of every Select Committee. Some Chairs have been diligent; for example, my right hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr. Denham) who formerly chaired the Home Affairs Committee, regularly attended European debates. The Chair of the Treasury Committee and the Chair of the Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Committee, formerly the Trade and Industry Committee, engaged with European affairs. However, the membership needs to engage with the process too, and that could happen through the mechanism that we are considering.

William Cash: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Michael Connarty: I will, but I do not want to take too many interventions because of the time.

William Cash: I very much commend the line that the hon. Gentleman is taking on advising departmental Select Committees, which is all I meant when I intervened on the Deputy Leader of the House. As the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field) has said, an enormous proportion of the legislation that we in this House deal with comes from Europe. Therefore, what the hon. Gentleman is suggesting—and what I reinforce from the Opposition Benches—is that because such a high percentage of legislation comes from the Council of Ministers and affects the whole House, the whole House must respond to it.

Michael Connarty: Although we sometimes spar, the hon. Gentleman knows that I respect him greatly, just as I also strongly respect the right hon. Member for Wells (Mr. Heathcoat-Amory), who is about to leave his place, even though he has different views from me on Europe, because they are serious participants in the debate. That is why we want to engage with Select Committees, so that they, too, engage on a daily basis.
	We have already made some progress. Until about six months ago, consultation on Green Papers and White Papers did not involve Select Committees, believe it or not—everyone outside the House was consulted, but the Select Committees, with their expertise and interest, were not asked to give an opinion. The House agreed to change that when our Committee spotted it, and we are definitely moving on.

Mark Francois: I am grateful to the Chairman of the Committee for giving way—he knows that I have a lot of time for him. On the point about consultation and papers, I served on one of the European Standing Committees in the previous Parliament, but the documentation that we had to read often arrived late in the day and was voluminous. The most extreme example was the occasion on which I received 900 photocopied pages the night before, which it was almost not humanly possible to assimilate, as hon. Members will appreciate. I did my best, but the European Scrutiny Committee summary was the only fighting chance that one had. However, if we are going to have a crack at making a revised system work—I hope that the Deputy Leader of the House will take this on board and that the Chairman agrees with me—there is a responsibility to ensure that members of the revised Committees have a sensible period, of at least a week, in which to read the documents in detail before they speak about them. If that does not happen, that threatens to undermine the integrity of the whole process.

Michael Connarty: That is a perceptive and lucidly expressed concern, and there are a number of things there. We know that the Whips and the business managers have a problem in getting hon. Members who can attend Committees named for them, but it would be useful if at least a week—or perhaps even a whole week and a few more days—could be given, for two reasons. The first is the very reason that the hon. Gentleman mentioned: so that Committee members can receive the papers at the same time, not when they walk into the Committee, and can work on them in their own time. I also believe that something should be done to make an executive summary.
	We will certainly be referring documents with the questions that we have raised in our reports that we wish to be taken up in those Committees, so that Committees do not have rambling discussions—this is the whole point of what, I hope, our amendments will achieve. Another point is that people outside this place—civic society organisations and businesses—want to know the membership at least a week in advance, so that they can send members briefings and ask them to ask questions on their behalf, thereby engaging people with Parliament's scrutiny process.
	Let me move on to the reasons for our amendment. Neither of the two reasons suggested is correct. In the past few days, when Europe has been to the fore, I have been accused of doing things for my own ego. However, my battered ego is not helped by the number of barbs I get when we are talking about Europe and some people would perhaps rather we were not, but I think it is a good thing that we are talking about Europe. Nor is the reason fear of bullying—I have been threatened by a number of people from this august organisation with dire consequences if I do not sit down and shut up more often, and stop raising Europe all the time. Those reasons might make other people move amendments, but they are certainly not my reasons.
	Our two reasons are these. First, this proposal must be tested for the rest of the Session, because it is not a fully fledged set of amendments to deal with everything recommended in the Modernisation Committee report. It has been negotiated in good faith by the Deputy Leader of the House and myself, by other colleagues in the Select Committees and in our own European Scrutiny Committee, and by Opposition Members. We need to check that it will work in good faith, and that we do not find that Members are being put on Select Committees that they do not wish to be on, or that Select Committee Chairs are getting upset by the process, or that my members are nominating people who are not being taken up, while others are being put on instead. If the process works in good faith, that will be a great thing.
	Secondly, we have mentioned January because we believe that, between October or November and January, there will be a need for other Standing Order amendments to be made, some of which have been discussed today. Others still lie in the Modernisation Committee report, including the recommendation that the European Scrutiny Committee have a role in initiating the subsidiarity process—the yellow and orange cards that have been mentioned in the main debates that we have been having on the treaty of Lisbon. Also, mention has already been made of the Standing Order amendment that is required to deal with the question of a general approach. We think that we are moving forward from a point where we are always in conflict with Ministers about this, and there are indications that the Cabinet Office is considering putting the matter in its scrutiny reserve resolution. Other Standing Order amendments would therefore be required, which I hope could be looked at between October or November—after looking at what has happened in the rest of the Session—and 1 January.
	I thank the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May) for not pressing her amendment on how we do our business in the European Scrutiny Committee. That matter will have to be looked at and resolved. It has been suggested that we should work in the full glare of publicity, but my worry is that the publicity can become the point of the meeting. It begins to be about getting publicity for a political position, rather than about the issues before us in the documents that we deal with. If we can square that circle, so that we can have a genuine debate rather than facing out to the latest member of the press to walk into the room—which we have seen a few times in our Committee when it has been in public session—we shall do a service to Parliament rather than a disservice to the whole process of scrutiny.

Theresa May: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. I simply want to clarify matters, because I think that he is basing his argument on a slight misunderstanding of what I said. I have not actually said whether I intend to press amendment (e) to a vote. I shall wait to hear what the Minister has to say. It seems only fair to clarify that matter.

Michael Connarty: I had misunderstood the right hon. Lady. I thought that the negotiations had allowed us to reach a position in which we would not try to force this through today. I believe that this is something for which we can work out a methodology in future.
	On the general Standing Orders, I welcome the fact that we shall have focus, which we lacked in the interim when we had Sessional Orders, which collapsed the old Standing Order No. 119 Standing Committees but did not put anything of any substance in their place. We just had ad hoc meetings that were like those for statutory instruments, and they were rather pointless. There will now be focus through the European Scrutiny Committee membership—and, I hope, through the Select Committee membership—on that Committee.
	I also hope that there will be breadth of engagement by Members. I know that the aspiration of the Deputy Leader of the House is that people will indicate interests and preferences, and will then be put on to the appropriate Committee, bringing their interests and expertise to the discussions that take place. The aim is to have more accountability through Parliament and through us. Through our Committee, and through the structures under Standing Order No. 119, as amended, we want to give Parliament—on the Opposition side and on the Government side—the feeling that it can make Ministers accountable. We diminish ourselves when we are not seen to engage with scrutiny properly. The late Foreign Secretary, Robin Cook—who was a good friend of mine—said again and again that good scrutiny made for good legislation, and that poor scrutiny made for poor legislation. We, and the people we represent, want good legislation.

Anthony Steen: The hon. Gentleman is a very astute, august and respected Chairman of the European Scrutiny Committee—speaking as a member of it, I can say that—but can he give the House some guidance about when he believes the deliberations will take place in public? He represents a party that believes in transparency, so is it not important that the public can actually see the wonderful work we do?

Michael Connarty: If I am august, the hon. Gentleman, as one of the longest serving members on the European Scrutiny Committee, is majestic— [Interruption.]—the longest serving member after the hon. Member for Stone (Mr. Cash), I am told. As the hon. Member for Totnes (Mr. Steen) knows, we take transparency seriously, as demonstrated in the report on the Council's conclusions that we published on Monday. We said that draft conclusions should be made available to this House's scrutiny process before the Prime Minister goes off to Council meetings to agree them. I repeat that we believe in transparency, but I take the hon. Gentleman's friendly admonishment that we may not have looked into that matter sufficiently for a number of years—not since I became the Committee's Chairman, in any case. I give the hon. Gentleman and other hon. Members an honest pledge that we will look into it further during this Session.
	I shall not hold up the debate any more. We are making progress. The position that we are debating here represents progress from where we found ourselves when the Sessional Order resolution was moved and amended three months ago. I hope that the House will accept the amendments proposed by Government Front Benchers and our amendment (a).

Simon Hughes: I am happy to follow the hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Michael Connarty) and to say to him what Liberal Democrats have said before—that we owe him and the European Scrutiny Committee a debt for doing such a good job. We are grateful for the Committee's consistent and wide interest in ensuring that it does an ever-better job and for making its views clear to the rest of us so that Parliament can have better processes for dealing with European legislation. I thank the hon. Gentleman very much for that.
	I would also like to thank the Leader of the House and the Deputy Leader of the House for picking up a ball that has effectively been on the ground since the Modernisation Committee reported nearly three years ago in March 2005. You will recall, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that the Modernisation Committee made about 25 recommendations covering the whole gamut of scrutiny of European legislation. It is not before time that we have come to this point. We all come to it from the same general point of view—that, by definition, there are now two ways in which laws come to Parliament. They come either from the Executive—or very occasionally from a Back Bencher—or from the European Union and its processes. That is entirely understandable.
	We heard the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field) suggest the cock-shy assessment that 60:40 is now the balance of the volume of legislation that we deal with—60 per cent. originates from Brussels and 40 per cent. from Whitehall. I do not have accurate figures, just as the Deputy Leader of the House said that she did not have them. It is certainly the case, by definition, that a large amount of legislation comes from Brussels, so it is absolutely right to have as good a system of scrutiny of Brussels proposals—and of the Government's attitude to matters on the European Council agenda—as we have of Whitehall legislation.
	This can seem arcane, technical and anorakish for people outside Parliament, but I have a simple triangular diagram to understand legislative activity. Down one side comes Whitehall legislation to Parliament at the bottom of the triangle; down the other side comes European legislation—but of course Whitehall and Brussels keep on talking to each other, which means that the third side is in communication with the other two. We have to ensure that those two streams are well filtered so that we know what we are doing.
	To try to bridge that point, we have colleagues who scrutinise secondary legislation. We all scrutinise primary legislation—now, mercifully, sometimes in draft as well as in the form of final proposals. We have colleagues who scrutinise secondary legislation and they alert us when they think that something is important. If it is important, it comes here. That is exactly the same system that we should have for European legislation. Members across the board—not whipped and dependent on their parties' views, but doing a job on behalf of Parliament—should spot what is important so that we are alerted to it.
	I have never served on the European Scrutiny Committee, but I have attended sittings of European Standing Committees on specific subjects, and in my experience the main issue is the one raised by the hon. Member for Rayleigh (Mr. Francois), who made his apologies for having to leave early. On occasion, Ministers have not wholly shared with us what is happening or is about to happen, or we have been given the relevant documents too late to do anything about it. I can even cap the example given by the hon. Member for Rayleigh of the monster document that was almost impossible to digest. Of course, there may be a lot of preamble and general Eurospeak to start with. I was a member of a Committee that did not have the documents in the right language, and did not have the latest versions.
	Those examples are incidental, and such incidents may occur less frequently than they did, but the fact is that they should never occur. The blunt truth is not that we should be able to mandate Ministers—I understand the point that has been made about that—but that we should be able to engage in honest scrutiny of what is on the table before an Agriculture Minister goes off to talk about fishery quotas, a Trade Minister goes off to deal with patents, a Foreign Minister goes off to negotiate treaties, or the Prime Minister goes off to negotiate the most important of treaties. At a time when we do not have a proper treaty scrutiny process, it is especially important for us to be able to quiz Ministers.
	Impressions of Ministers have varied. It seems that some have been very good and co-operative, while others have been much less good and apparently much less co-operative. Members of the Committee, along with others, have sometimes felt frustrated by a lack of engagement in debate. I am well aware that therein lies the issue of when a session needs to be held in secret. Of course there will be occasions when it is necessary so that we do not show our hand in public when a crucial negotiation is taking place, but that does not preclude the presumption that a session should be open to the public unless there is a good reason to the contrary. That is why I support the amendment tabled by the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May): it does not propose that all sittings should take place in public, but suggests that it should be presumed they will unless a decision is made to hold them in secret.

James Clappison: The hon. Gentleman mentioned treaty negotiations. It may help him to form a view of the relationship between this country and the European Union when treaties are being negotiated, and also of the behaviour of the present Government, to know that the European Scrutiny Committee was kept completely in the dark about negotiations during the run-up to the June intergovernmental conference. Until a fortnight beforehand, we were told that nothing at all was happening. We were wasting our time even trying to scrutinise what was taking place.

Simon Hughes: I am well aware of that. I was alerted to it by a Committee colleague, my hon. Friend the Member for Teignbridge (Richard Younger-Ross), and it is entirely unsatisfactory. At the top of the pyramid of importance in the current Parliament is the most important European Union document, the treaty that is the subject of the Bill currently before the House, and it really should have been possible for us to scrutinise and discuss its earlier drafts. It is nonsensical that that was not possible.

Peter Lilley: With the greatest respect, how can the hon. Gentleman expect to be taken seriously when he pays lip service to the importance of scrutiny and describes the European treaty as the most important issue before the House, given that although the European Scrutiny Committee has compared the treaty with the European constitution and concluded that they are fundamentally and essentially the same, he continues to engage in the pretence that they are different? When the hon. Gentleman treats the European Scrutiny Committee—and the Foreign Affairs Committee—with contempt, why should we pay any attention to the lip service that he pays to the need to improve the prestige and authority of those Committees?

Simon Hughes: What lies behind the right hon. Gentleman's question is a difference of view on the treaty, which I understand. I do not treat the Foreign Affairs Committee or the European Scrutiny Committee with contempt in any way. I have looked at both the original proposals for the treaty and those before us now, and in my view there is a significant and substantial difference; I have formed my own judgment about that. The first set of proposals would have replaced all the European Union treaties with a new and much larger and more expansive document, whereas the second set would not. They are, therefore, different.
	It does not follow from that that there is a difference between the right hon. Gentleman and my party colleagues and me on the notion that the people of the United Kingdom should have a vote on these issues; the difference between us is simply that we believe the vote should be on the larger question, "Do you, the British people, want to be part of the EU on the terms proposed, or not?"

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. We are now straying rather wide of the matters under discussion. May I encourage the hon. Gentleman to come back on target?

Simon Hughes: Of course, Mr. Deputy Speaker, although I was only responding to the earlier intervention.

William Cash: On a specific point that I think is on target as it is to do with the scrutiny processes of this country, because of majority voting there is necessarily an interaction with other countries' voting arrangements, so it is also important for us to bear in mind what happens in those countries. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman agrees that many, if not most, of the 27 member states have a wholly inadequate scrutiny process in either their Committees or Parliament. Does he not therefore agree that there is a serious democratic gap in how this legislation is passed in Europe as a whole?

Simon Hughes: Yes, I do; my colleagues and I have argued that. Being mindful of your strictures on addressing the proposals under discussion, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I will be succinct in my comments on this matter. The two principal deficits are that the European Parliament does not have enough power and that the European Council meets behind closed doors where it can carve things up, out of the public domain. So, yes, there is inadequate scrutiny there, but we are talking today about scrutiny here.
	There is an unresolved overlap or tension between the responsibilities of subject Select Committees and the European Select Committee. The most common overlap is with the Foreign Affairs Committee; it did its own work on the Lisbon treaty, for example. There is still work to be done on where the dividing lines should be drawn. The Liaison Committee has an interest in this matter as, of course, do the Committee chaired by the hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk and the departmental Select Committees. Work must be done so that we make the best use of the expertise in this House and ensure that subject-specific areas of European legislative proposal are looked at by those who take the greatest interest in them. We might need to make further changes.
	It might be the case that each of the subject Select Committees has a sub-committee dealing with European affairs and has relevant expertise so an interrelationship might be of benefit. I realise that there are proposals on the Order Paper seeking to deal with that, by allowing people from the relevant Select Committee to be on the relevant European Committee when it deals with certain matters. That is an improvement, and I welcome it.
	The current commentary is to the effect that the scrutiny process in the other place has become very effective and we might still have quite a way to go to catch up. The hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk and his colleagues have done very well, but there is certainly now strong scrutiny in the other place. The Modernisation Committee proposed a Joint Committee; the largest number of recommendations to it were for a Joint Committee on Europe, which would be a very strong beast.
	The Minister has not responded to that proposal, and I think I am right in saying that, unusually, we have not had a Government response to this Modernisation Committee report on these issues. Usually, we get a Committee report and the Government publish their response; in this instance, the response has come in the form of this debate and the proposals made. I urge the Deputy Leader of the House to think seriously, in conjunction with colleagues and being mindful of all the sensitivities, about whether there is not merit in having a Joint Committee of both Houses on these matters, not least to do the sort of things that the Modernisation Committee suggested, for example, questioning Commissioners. We have lost that good idea in the process of moving where we have.
	The Leader of the House and her deputy have consulted on these proposals, and they are generally welcome, because they are all steps in the right direction. I thank them for their courtesy in consulting. They picked up the desire for moving in a more effective direction, and that is reflected in the motion. That is good.
	I am glad that the Government have accepted amendment (a), which proposes that we try this system for a period and then re-examine it. The Deputy Leader of the House says that she sees this as being the next phase and by no means more than that, and that we might need to move on relatively quickly in the light of ideas and suggestions. That is also good.
	I heard the Deputy Leader of the House say that she has accepted the important principle of amendment (b), which is that the people who go on to the relevant Committee from the European Scrutiny Committee should be the people whom the European Scrutiny Committee judges are the most appropriate to do that job. Let us be absolutely honest about this. One of this bit of the system's traditional failings has been that many nominations were made because the Committee of Selection was under pressure to fit everybody in, and thus people who were not volunteering, who were not keen and who were not knowledgeable were chosen. People were selected because it was their turn to do this duty or because they had been naughty boys or girls and they had been selected as punishment. That approach is nonsense.
	Given the issue's seriousness, we must be serious about who does the job, hence the principle that the European Scrutiny Committee should be permanent for a Parliament to enable it to build up expertise. The three new European Committees— there is a question as to whether we need only three—should contain a core of expertise that remains.
	Let us consider the example of the Committee that will deal with justice and home affairs. Such issues—terrorism, immigration and so on—are important. Even if the UK has the opt-outs under the Lisbon treaty, or even with a loss of business, that Committee will need people who know what they are talking about, who have been there before and who do not just turn up for a week or two and then leave. I think that the Deputy Leader of the House understands that.
	These Committees need to contain a core of people who see such scrutiny as a main and important function. That is the feedback that I have been given, and it is the impression that I have picked up when I have been involved. We might need to have a cross-party discussion, led by the European Scrutiny Committee, about the number of Committees we require. It may be better to have four or five Committees with fewer members, where people are able to take things seriously, covering the main subject areas of European Union legislative activity.
	I come to a general reform of government point, which the Deputy Leader of the House has heard me make before. We have a Government who have grown to be far too big for the legislature—there are now more than 100 Ministers, in addition to the Parliamentary Private Secretaries. If none of them can be free spirits, the number of people available to do all the Committee work is reduced. Until and unless we rein in the number of Ministers and Parliamentary Private Secretaries relative to the number of Members of Parliament, we will always struggle to get the people with the expertise to do the scrutiny job. As everybody has said, it is very difficult for the legislative to rein in the growth of the Executive. It is always difficult for Governments to deliver on that because they get tempted to do otherwise.
	I have two final points to make. On amendment (c), it must be right that a motion that comes from a Committee to Parliament is the motion that the Committee agreed. We must start with the starting point. There is no point in having a Committee that is then counteracted. I shall listen carefully to what the Deputy Leader of the House says in her winding-up speech, but if I have understood her correctly, she accepts that this case should be the same as that for Opposition days, when the motion is chosen by the relevant party and then amended by the Government. For the benefit of outsiders, that would mean that the subject would come from the Committee, not the Government. That is important and would be the right way round.
	An indirectly related point is the scrutiny reserve. That is another technical but hugely important point—we all know what it means, but if we were to do an opinion poll in any of our constituencies, we would get more than the usual number of blank looks from people.

Kelvin Hopkins: And from many hon. Members too!

Simon Hughes: The hon. Gentleman, our friend from the Committee, suggests that not everybody here would know what it means, but I think that that would be unfair.
	We need to get grips with that issue. Written questions are often asked about how often the scrutiny reserve has been used, and the answer is that it is used regularly. Sometimes that is understandable, but I have a clear sense that it is used far too much. There are some answers to that problem. The first, which is related to the summer holiday problem, is that the scrutiny process must go on over the summer recess if we insist on breaking over the summer. The better solution, which has been proposed by my colleagues and resisted by the Government, is to break when the school holidays start in the summer, come back when the schools go back at the beginning of September and do some work as a Parliament in September before breaking again around the party conference season. Alternatively, we could move the party conferences.
	There is no justification for this Parliament going away from its business for three months when, for a large part of that time, the European Parliament sits and European business—whatever we think about holidays in Brussels for people in the Commission—goes on.

Michael Connarty: On that point, I did not mention the fact that we received correspondence as well as holding meetings. One piece of correspondence from the Deputy Leader of the House that we considered contained the suggestion that the European Scrutiny Committee should meet in the summer recess. We have already informally discussed that. In general, we agree as a Committee—although I would have loved the provision to be made by Standing Order, because it would then not have been blamed on me—that we should meet sometime in mid-September to deal with the business that would normally fall foul of the scrutiny reserve because we did not look at it in time.

Simon Hughes: If that is the view of the Committee, I am grateful. It does not trump the argument that Parliament should be here, but the scrutiny process should certainly go on.
	The Deputy Leader of the House suggested that, even if there was to be no change to the Standing Orders, we should routinely have the opportunity for a gradated report back from Ministers by written statement on the least controversial issues, in Westminster Hall on the more controversial issues, or on the Floor of the House on the most controversial issues. I understand that that is what the Deputy Leader of the House proposes. It is a welcome development that will help to provide consistency. There will be a regular review of European legislation on the Council's agenda twice a year in May and autumn.

Helen Goodman: I am sorry if the hon. Gentleman thinks that the proposals are even better than they are. We are suggesting that there should be two debates in Westminster Hall on the Commission's work plan and legislative programme. Had hon. Members tabled amendments to the Government motion proposing reporting back in Westminster Hall, we would have been minded to view them sympathetically. However, they would have required changes to Standing Orders. At the moment, that is not on the table.

Simon Hughes: I am grateful for that honest clarification. I saw the note about the proposal that the hon. Lady circulated earlier, and it is clear that there is a bit of administration that we still need to do. She has said that the Government are willing to consider the proposition, and I hope that we can reach agreement quickly. After significant negotiations, a scheduled opportunity to hear from and question Ministers in Westminster Hall would be welcome.

Theresa May: rose—

Simon Hughes: I see that the right hon. Lady is going to support the proposal too.

Theresa May: I am sorry to disappoint the hon. Gentleman, and I should probably put it on record that we have had conversations on this subject. As he said, it was in one of the earlier proposals circulated by the Deputy Leader of the House. I do not have concerns about the European dimension, although if the matters involved are so significant they should be discussed on the Floor of the House rather than in Westminster Hall. However, the possibility that oral statements could be made in Westminster Hall starts to change the nature of that forum and its relationship with this Chamber. That is why I am not comfortable with the proposal that has been made.

Simon Hughes: I understand that, and the right hon. Lady is elucidating a matter of principle, but the negotiations remain to be completed and I am sure that there is a way to ensure ministerial accountability.
	I end by saying that we are asking for accountability before decisions are made, not afterwards. That is the fundamental thing that I and other colleagues are looking for. Before Ministers go to Europe, we must be able to hold them to account and express our views in a vote, free from the Whips and party pressures. We will be considering the position adopted by the UK in the 27 EU member states, so it is very important that we are seen to act honestly, openly and transparently.
	We have taken a good next step today, but further work must be done if we are to regain the confidence of the British public. People must believe that what comes out of Brussels is properly scrutinised, and that requires that the UK Parliament play a full and central part in ensuring that the right decisions are made.

Kelvin Hopkins: I am pleased to be able to contribute to the debate, as it is on a subject in which I have a considerable interest. I am pleased too that the measure under discussion is an interim provision and that we will be able to look further at how we scrutinise European legislation and documentation in the future.
	I became a member of the ESC a few months ago. I much enjoy the work and take a great interest in it, but for eight years I was a permanent member of European Standing Committee B, so I speak on these matters with some experience.
	The right hon. Member for Wells (Mr. Heathcoat-Amory) has left the Chamber, but I hope that the remaining Opposition Members will accept that, when I say that European scrutiny should continue to be conducted in private, I am not trying to be secretive and to prevent the public from knowing what we do. Instead, my concern is to provide a space in which our advisers are able to speak freely and frankly to us. If we were to meet in public, my fear is that they would feel constrained and that they had to be much more reserved. Indeed, they might even believe that they had to resort to supplying written documentation rather than speaking to us, because there is no doubt that being reported on television and in the press would turn them into public figures.
	That would not be right. They are very much our advisers: they are not part of the cat's paw of Government and they give us honest advice that I have found to be very valuable. It is refreshing because it is so direct. Although I do not always agree with it, we all know that the Government are not trying to control us by means of the advice that we are given. That is the point that I want to make about secrecy.
	Three and a half years ago, I made a written submission about European scrutiny to the Modernisation Committee. I had forgotten about it, but I found it today and read it through. Much to my surprise, I discovered that, even now, I agree with what I wrote then.
	I agree with much of what has been said in the Chamber this afternoon. My hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Michael Connarty) is an excellent Chair of our Select Committee. He does a tremendous job, and I agree with what he said earlier. We had a meeting last week with my hon. Friend the Deputy Leader of the House, and I agree entirely with the trenchant observations that he made. She may even remember some of the remarks that I made, and I still stand by them.
	I should like to emphasise how important it is that European Committees, or European Standing Committees as we called them, have permanent members. It would not be the same if members were appointed ad hoc, even if we tried to ensure that they were enthusiasts. I was a member of European Standing Committee B for eight years and I saw things go wrong, in a sense. Right at the beginning, in 1997 when I first became a Member, everyone wanted to speak and ask questions in Committee. The Ministers came along knowing that they had a strong, robust Committee to deal with, and they did their homework.
	I remember that one former hon. Friend, Helen Liddell—well, she is still honourable and still a Friend, but she is no longer in the House; she is ambassador to Australia—was concerned to make sure that she got a real grip on the documents and knew what she was talking about. She was prepared to answer all questions and to make a proper speech. Sadly, because Ministers are no longer treated so enthusiastically by Members who come to speak and ask questions, Government Members—I will not mention names—do not do their homework in the way they used to. The typical performance now is for the Minister to speak, then the Opposition spokesperson, and then the Liberal Democrat Front Bencher. Sometimes I speak, too. That is about it; very few other people participate.
	Sometimes, the lack of enthusiasm has meant that there is pressure not to speak or ask questions, because if one did the meeting would go on longer, and people wanted to get away. The atmosphere is that of a Statutory Instrument Committee, where Members are not interested in the subject and want the Committee to be over quickly, and so do not speak or ask questions. That is not how we should treat European legislation; it is too important for that.

William Cash: I agree with the hon. Gentleman. We are on the same Committee and have experience of how it works in practice. However, I should like to add to what he said about the Whip system. My point also relates to what I said earlier to the shadow Leader of the House. The essence of the problem is that whatever is decided in a European Standing Committee, based on the merits of the debate, really ought to matter, but in one sense it does not. Yes, there is a debate, but if the European Standing Committee turns down a proposal, the position is automatically reversed on the Floor of the House. As I am sure the hon. Gentleman will agree, that is why many people in Committee believe that they are going through the motions. To that extent, the process needs to be reformed much more drastically.

Kelvin Hopkins: I understand that point, and I raised it in an earlier intervention, but we have a strongly-whipped parliamentary system, and we cannot get round that too easily. I still believe that the scrutiny meetings and debates on the Floor of the House are important and have some influence. When I speak in a European Standing Committee—I spoke in one last Monday on rail freight, a particular interest of mine—I know that I am speaking to a Minister, who will hear my view. Departmental officials and staff of the House are also present, and hopefully they are all listening and taking note, and are somewhat influenced by what one says. There might even come a point when a Committee defeats a Government motion—the motions are mostly "that the Committee has noted" something. The defeat may then be reversed on the Floor of the House, but the point has been made. That puts pressure on the Government and Ministers, and will at least be a matter for future reference. Perhaps such a defeat will have some influence in the subject area concerned. That is the best that we can do.
	One of the points that I made in my submission to the Modernisation Committee was that our system may not be perfect, but it is the best that we have, although I do not describe it as a Panglossian "best of all possible worlds". We consider issues seriously, and our arrangements are better than those of some other nations. One of my concerns, which I am sure is shared by some Opposition Members, is that under qualified majority voting, things can be voted through because many European nations do not take scrutiny seriously. They rubber-stamp anything that comes from Brussels. Countries such as ours, which might take a more serious view, cannot obtain a blocking majority because so many countries simply rubber-stamp things, because we are all Europeans now.
	Not long ago, I said in a debate in the Chamber that many European Governments—by which I meant systems of government—are less trusted by their citizens than ours. Even with the relative decline in turnout in the UK, by and large people still think our system of government is important and they continue to trust it. We take our Government seriously, whereas in Italy, which has had a chaotic system of government since the second world war, many citizens do not take their Government too seriously; they may say, "Well our Government is useless but at least we've got the European Union and it might knock some sense into their heads". I do not know whether they think that, but it is possible. We tend to think the opposite—we do not want to be governed by Brussels because we can perfectly well govern ourselves. Because we take such things seriously, we should at least preserve our existing scrutiny system and try to improve it, which we are discussing this afternoon.
	Permanent membership of Committees is important. Our Whips, or those who appoint Committees, should explore with Members what their interests are and whether they are prepared to take their Committee membership seriously, as with Select Committees. In our party, we apply for membership of Select Committees and are, in effect, appointed by our Whips because we have at least an interest in the subject. If we took that approach with European Committees and their status was raised, even though attendance might still be whipped there would be proper participation and proper questioning of Ministers. Members would at least have looked at the documents and could ask questions or make a speech on the important things.
	I agree with the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May) that we should have more debates on the Floor of the House, not just in Westminster Hall and not just general debates. There are two things that should always be debated on the Floor of the House, and with a good time allowed: the European budget and the report of the Court of Auditors. They are serious documents about whether our money is being spent appropriately and not corruptly.
	Will my hon. Friend the Deputy Leader of the House give serious consideration to the possibility of instituting permanent membership of the European Committees? That would be difficult if there were too many Committees, as I pointed out in an earlier submission, because we would have to find more members for them. When I was first an MP, there were two European Standing Committees and then there were three, which is enough. There should be three European Committees with permanent members who take the job seriously and make sure that we perform scrutiny as we should.
	Although I have been a member of the European Scrutiny Committee only a few months, I think that it works well, which is partly to do with the splendid way it is chaired. Its members take the Committee seriously and they do a good job, for which I commend them. I enjoy being a member of the Committee because it is taken seriously, but I do not care to be intimidated by fellow Members into not speaking in Committee because it will delay proceedings and they want to go home. In the past, even one of our Whips has occasionally said, "You're not going to speak, are you?" That is inappropriate if we are to take our job seriously, and my hon. Friend the Deputy Leader should have a word with our Whips to make sure that it does not happen in future.
	I hope that my hon. Friend will take note of the points I have made and ensure that scrutiny works well in future both on the Floor of the House and in the Committees.

William Cash: The debate has been very useful and I am extremely glad that we have achieved so much agreement. I am also glad to learn that the measure, although important, is an interim one, because we shall need to tackle other matters, as the hon. Member for Luton, North (Kelvin Hopkins)—a co-member of the Committee—suggested.
	I want to make a number of points to set the background for our debate. One of them arises from the amendment tabled by my right hon. Friend the shadow Leader of the House regarding the Committee's decision about whether it should sit in public. This is not in any sense a criticism, but an important addendum to the amendment. It relates to the manner in which the chairmanship of the Committee is decided.
	The proposal from the shadow Leader of the House is that the Committee shall sit in public unless it determines otherwise. The Committee's decision about whether to sit in public would inevitably be determined by the agenda, which would be prepared by the Chairman. The Chairman of the European Scrutiny Committee knows well enough that there are occasions when I do not agree with his decisions, although of course I abide by them, because we try to work as well as possible. Nevertheless, there are occasions when I vote against his proposals in Committee and they are registered in the formal minutes.
	We should bear it in mind that there are many Select Committees but only two scrutiny Committees in the House of Commons: the Public Accounts Committee and the European Scrutiny Committee. Although the Public Accounts Committee undoubtedly has a much higher profile, I pay tribute publicly and openly to the hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Michael Connarty) for what he has achieved in the past months since becoming Chairman. In relation to a vast amount of European legislation—for example, in connection with the latest treaty—the issues that crop up get into some extremely sensitive areas in matters of concern to the Government.
	The Public Accounts Committee, by convention, always has as its Chairman a member of the Opposition. Even with my 23 years on the European Scrutiny Committee—I would be extremely surprised if any other Member of the House had been on any Select Committee continuously for 23 years—I have never expressed any wish or desire to be Chairman of the Committee, but I think the chairmanship should be in the hands of the Opposition party. I would be grateful if the shadow Leader of the House took account of this point, which is a matter of extreme importance on occasions.

Michael Connarty: If the hon. Gentleman reads some of my remarks earlier in my own speech, he will see that our Whips think the Committee is indeed chaired by a member of the Opposition.

William Cash: We would concur with that. That is why I wanted to pay tribute to the Chairman. Although we have had a number of disagreements, that is part of the political process. He takes a view on the treaty and on Europe in general that I do not share, but none the less his chairmanship has been extremely good. That is without prejudice to my main concern, which is that just as the Public Accounts Committee should be in the chairmanship of the Opposition, so the chairmanship of the European Scrutiny Committee should be, as well,
	Remarks have been transferred back to me about what took place in the Modernisation Committee on one occasion, in the mistaken belief that I wanted to be Chairman of the Committee in view of my long tenure. Somebody suggested that the reason the Opposition did not get the chairmanship was that according to seniority, by a long way, I would get it and that would not be in the interests of those who oppose my views. Well, I do not worry about that because I do not and never have put myself forward as Chairman of the Committee, but the argument that I have advanced about the need for the Opposition to hold the Chair stands good, without prejudice to the excellent work that the current Chairman does.

David Drew: I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way and I apologise for not being present for most of the debate, as I have been in the Westminster Hall debate. Does he agree that the answer is that Select Committees should decide their own Chair? It is outrageous that that is laid down for Select Committees. Many of us would have no compunction about voting for someone of a different party if they were the best Chair for the Select Committee. That is the way the matter should be handled.

William Cash: I agree. My party has a taskforce, chaired by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke), on democracy and the workings of Parliament. I pay tribute to my right hon. and learned Friend's work, although I had one big disagreement about European scrutiny, which is one of the issues raised in the report. I also pay tribute to the contribution of my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May) on questions of scrutiny; I shall come to one of her specific proposals—amendment (f)—in a moment.
	There is a problem about how representations are made to the Committee. For the Committee to be able to deliberate as is proposed under these changes to the Standing Orders, and even as it does at the moment, there are excellent advisers, to whom the hon. Member for Luton, North referred. I pay tribute to them. I have been on the Committee for 23 years and believe that they have been an enormous bulwark and have offered excellent advice. They are completely dispassionate; I have never had reason to doubt the quality of their advice or of the enormous amount of work that they put into the incredibly complex documents.
	I should like to pay special tribute to the current legal adviser to the Committee—and to his predecessors, but especially to him. He has shown dedication and an enormous amount of legal knowledge of a kind that simply cannot properly be quantified.

James Clappison: indicated assent.

William Cash: My hon. Friend agrees with my tribute, and I know that my right hon. Friend the Member for Wells (Mr. Heathcoat-Amory) also would if he were here.

Kelvin Hopkins: I agree with everything that the hon. Gentleman has said on that. Does he agree that the cover notes on all the documents are absolutely first class—clear, concise, well written and to the point—and in extreme contrast to the almost unintelligible documentation coming from Europe?

William Cash: On the whole, people outside the House, particularly media commentators, pay absolutely no attention to what goes on in the European Scrutiny Committee, although I have noticed that some of the sketch writers come in occasionally. Generally speaking, European scrutiny is regarded as a subject to be accompanied by an enormous yawn and seen as about the most boring thing on earth. However, the bottom line is that the scrutiny of European legislation is at the heart of what goes on in the House.
	Earlier, the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field) said that the German Parliament had calculated that 60 per cent. of its legislation initiates in Brussels; in fact, former President Herzog put the figure at 85 per cent. I do not believe that such people are trying to mislead or exaggerate, any more than we are when we make our own estimates. The fact is that the whole of the legislative process has, in a sense, been inverted. Without going the whole way down that route, I simply make the point that that is why the focus on the European scrutiny process is so critical.
	As the hon. Member for Luton, North pointed out, and as I did in an intervention on the hon. Member for North Southwark and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes), if that scrutiny is not done properly in the other member states—if things are done in a way that is inconsistent with our vital national interests—and we are governed by qualified majority voting in the Council of Ministers, the consequences could be dire for this country. I want to put that general proposition on the record.
	Just before Christmas, another point arose in the context of a failure to comply with the resolution of November 1998. In a motion that I proposed in the European Scrutiny Committee—I am not disclosing any confidences, as this is well known—I proposed that the Prime Minister should be required to comply with the scrutiny reserve Standing Orders and that resolution with respect to the signing of the treaty.
	As regards the document that we had considered, it was in the spirit of Standing Orders—the key thing in relation to the manner in which the procedures of this House operate—that for the words "IGC opinion", one could read, "reform treaty". We said that there should be a debate on the Floor of the House and that that should be done before the Prime Minister signed the treaty on 13 December. That was not done, and the bottom line is that there was a bit of buckling all round. My right hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr. Lilley) and I, with about 12 of our hon. Friends, went through the Lobby to support our opposition to the position that the Government had adopted. I think that there was a misunderstanding in some quarters as to the importance of all this, as I said when I intervened on my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead. I believe that our party should have put its foot down very strongly on that occasion. It caused a few ruffles, but let us not worry about that, because these things happen in the political arena.
	I was delighted to notice that the next morning an excellent pamphlet written by my right hon. Friend the shadow Leader of the House was published in which she laid down the requirement that if circumstances arose in which the Government did not comply with the scrutiny reserve, the most dire sanctions should be visited upon them. I will not go into the detail because I do not have the pamphlet with me. For practical purposes, she was completely right. We all learn from these experiences, and the shadow Leader of the House has done us a service by publishing that pamphlet, although I have no doubt that there are other matters which we could discuss further and which could be added to it.
	Another question is that of representations to the European Scrutiny Committee by bodies such as the CBI, the Association of British Chambers of Commerce and the Institute of Directors. I mentioned that when I spoke on Second Reading of the Single European Act in 1986 and I wrote an article in  The Times about it in the same year. I said, in the light of my experience in advising on the impact of legislation for 20 years before I came to the House, that in relation to scrutiny it is essential that trade associations that are concerned to get matters right for their membership—it applies to the trade unions as well—should make their views known in advance to the Committee. Our scrutiny reserve process provides a breathing space by putting on hold any decision by a Minister in the Council of Ministers, and in that intervening period, after we have given it due consideration, a change of mind could take place. That makes any overriding by a Government Department of a decision that is taken by the Committee, where it is done wilfully, a grievous breach of Standing Orders and of the resolution of 1998.
	I put the matter of the Lisbon treaty and the Prime Minister into that category. I urge people in trade associations, professional organisations and trade unions to volunteer information to the Committee so that our advisers have the best possible advice available on what is going on in the world outside. With the best will in the world, they can form a judgment as expert advisers, but they need as well-informed a judgment as possible. What would be better, in relation to questions affecting industry, commerce or whatever, than all the people who wanted to make representations being able to use the Committee as a means to ensure that any debate that is held is held on the right basis?

Kelvin Hopkins: I agree with the hon. Gentleman about outside organisations making representations so that we are better informed. Would it not also be a good idea for general advice to be issued to Select Committees stating that any documentation that comes to them that they think relevant to European legislation should be passed to us on a regular basis? Many Select Committees, such as the one I belong to, receive a series of documents submitted by outside organisations, which give very valuable advice. Those might be helpful to the European Scrutiny Committee, too.

William Cash: I concur with that point. I support any means whereby the maximum useful information can be made available in a decision of matters that, once decided in the Council of Ministers, becomes apparently irrevocable. Such decisions cannot be changed by this Parliament except through the use of the formula
	"notwithstanding the European Communities Act 1972",
	which I believe we should use, perhaps more often than some people might suppose. The question is one of whether we legislate in this House, or through the Council of Ministers and the European Court of Justice.
	On the point made by the hon. Member for Luton, North, there is a provision in the Standing Orders about the European Scrutiny Committee. Standing Order No. 143, paragraph (11) states:
	"The committee shall have power to seek from any committee specified in paragraph (12) of this order"—
	that is, the Select Committees, their Sub-Committees, the Public Administration Committee, the Public Accounts Committee, and the Environmental Audit Committee—
	"its opinion on any European Union document, and to require a reply to such a request within such time as it may specify."
	That power has not been used very often, but it is important if we are to get scrutiny right because the interaction—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I am sure that it has been extremely informative to put the answer to that question on the record, but it lies outwith the motions and amendments we are discussing. I think that I should steer the hon. Gentleman back to the proposals before the House.

William Cash: I am grateful to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, because having served on the European Scrutiny Committee with you for 14 years, I know that you know a great deal about how the workings of the Committee.
	I now move on to the proposal in amendment (f), which is described as:
	"Debate on decisions of the European Scrutiny Committee".
	My right hon. Friend the shadow Leader of the House—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I remind the hon. Gentleman, before he goes too deeply into this matter, that that amendment was not selected by Mr. Speaker.

William Cash: I am extremely grateful to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I had not appreciated that; I would not have referred to it otherwise. It is an interesting amendment, but I had not appreciated that it was not selected. What a pity—particularly as I was one who proposed the idea behind it, which the shadow Leader of the House then took up. But there we are. It is funny how these things go in circles.  [ Laughter. ] I think that I am getting the message.
	The other point I want to make relates to amendment (d), which I think has been selected. I hope that I am in order there, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Unfortunately not.

William Cash: A number of amendments have not been selected, and I apologise for even referring to the existence of this one. It suggested that there would be a power to send for officials of the European Parliament and the European Commission—something we should do more regularly.
	The essence of the important debate is whether we can improve the quality of the scrutiny process, for reasons that go to the heart of the way in which we tackle such issues. The Committee was set up immediately after the European Communities Act 1972 was passed to act as an advisory body and ensure that things were done properly. On the whole, in the years since 1972, the Committee has done a good job and is getting better. When I first served on the Committee, there was a tendency to be rather relaxed about some provisions. Nowadays, a serious analysis is conducted, possibly because the accumulated functions have become so great that we have to take the Committee even more seriously.
	We need to improve our arrangements. I still believe that the "notwithstanding" formula will become necessary, for example, for the charter of fundamental rights, the supremacy of Parliament and the Bill of Rights provisions, which we will discuss later, when we consider the treaty. Having said that, the debate is important and the European Scrutiny Committee does a good job, despite the fact that not many people outside take a blind bit of notice of what we do.

Shailesh Vara: I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Michael Connarty)—

Michael Connarty: I'm in trouble enough.

Shailesh Vara: The hon. Gentleman should enjoy it while it lasts. He and his colleagues on the Committee do a terrific job, despite the difficulties, many of which have already been articulated. They should be commended for that. I thank all the speakers who have taken part in the debate, especially given that the House is due to rise for a few days.
	I am pleased that the Government have recognised the inadequacies in the European scrutiny procedure, although I fear that the concessions are merely tinkering and do not go to the heart of what is required to scrutinise properly the legislation that stems from Brussels in an ever-increasing flow.
	It is especially regrettable that no proposal has been made to challenge the override facility, to which my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May) referred. That mechanism allows the Government to override the scrutiny reserve power of European Committees to agree to European legislation at central meetings between Ministers of the member states and European Union officials. It is noteworthy that, since 2001, the Government have used the override facility on more than 350 occasions to bind Britain to European Union legislation without debate in either House or any express consent from Parliament. We also have the so-called fast-track system, whereby some 60 per cent. of all legislation is passed. It allows legislation to be adopted straight away after it has passed its First Reading in the European Parliament. Again, there is no scope for proper scrutiny of that legislation.
	I am pleased that the Deputy Leader of the House acknowledges the problem of the 12 weeks when the European Scrutiny Committee does not sit but the European Commission still legislates. However, I am not convinced that the matter should be left, as she proposes, simply to the discretion of the Committee to sit during the recess. That needs to be reconsidered.
	I endorse the point of my right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire (Mr. Knight), who said that he greatly hoped that the Government would accept proposals that might enhance the scrutiny of the legislation that stems from Brussels. The proposals for opening up scrutiny to the public are simply not good enough at present. It cannot be right that a procedure that deals with so much legislation—believed to be some 60 per cent. of the legislation impacting on the British public—is held behind closed doors. The public are already rightly wary of the subject; continuing in a secret way will only add to that wariness. I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr. Lilley) that there is a fair amount of contempt in some quarters for the lack of scrutiny. That will only increase unless we make a genuine attempt to open up the proceedings in that area.
	Incidentally, the Deputy Leader of the House will no doubt be aware that the lack of openness flies in the face of what the Prime Minister said in his opening days about wanting his Government to be open and frank. I appreciate that that made a good soundbite at the time and that it might now just be detail that can be conveniently ignored, but I fear that it is detail of rather great importance that should not be ignored.
	My right hon. Friend the shadow Leader of the House rightly referred to the success of other countries. She mentioned Denmark, to which I should like to add Sweden and Finland, which also have increased scrutiny. We should certainly take lessons from those countries.
	The Deputy Leader of the House said that she believed that our amendment (c) would not achieve our aims. We have looked at it and we believe that it does, so I would welcome a further explanation from her on that point.
	The hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk made a thoughtful and knowledgeable speech. His experience as Chairman of the august European Scrutiny Committee was clear. I agreed with him entirely, as I am sure did many other hon. Members, when he quoted the late Robin Cook as saying that good scrutiny makes for good legislation.
	The hon. Member for North Southwark and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes) made a typically informed speech, identifying various points of serious concern. I was particularly pleased that he agreed that there should be more openness of the Committee and its proceedings. The hon. Member for Luton, North (Kelvin Hopkins) made a valuable contribution, although I did not agree with his reluctance to open up the proceedings of the Committee. I understand his reservations about advisers perhaps being reluctant to give free and frank advice, but when we are talking about 60 per cent. of the legislation impacting on the British people, we have a duty as elected Members to let the public know what advice we are acting upon. The hon. Gentleman and I will therefore have to agree to disagree on that point.

Kelvin Hopkins: My concern is that the Government would effectively have more control if the proceedings were more open than less. For the House to have control, it is important that our advisers should be free to say what they want to say and not be pressurised through becoming public figures. My point was about ensuring that the House is as independent in the matter as possible, rather than having even more control placed in the Government's hands.

Shailesh Vara: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for making that point, but there has been a tendency in the past decade or so to make officials give the answers and advice that the Government wish to hear. If the Government put less pressure on advisers, they might be minded to give more free and frank advice. My understanding is that many such people are lawyers. If they were practising in another area of the law, the advice that they gave would be on record—if they were in open court, there would be journalists. If the advisers are lawyers, there is no reason why they cannot be open in their advice in this context.

Michael Connarty: To assist the hon. Gentleman, let me say that the point is that the advisers do not work for the Government; they work for Parliament. They work for our Committee with tremendous loyalty and they are in no way interfered with. Some of them have illustrious antecedence—they have been permanent secretaries or senior officials in Departments who have moved over to help us. The point that my hon. Friend the Member for Luton, North (Kelvin Hopkins) was making was that, if the advisers felt that they might become the focus of attention by being named in the press for giving their advice in public, they would be reluctant to become, as it were, the stars of the show.
	May I further help the hon. Gentleman? As I seriously promised, we have been thinking about how we could open up the Committee. It might be possible to structure the proceedings in such a way that we could have half a meeting in private, at which we could have an interchange with our officials, before moving into public session and formally discussing the documents without asking the officials to speak. We would already have received their written and spoken advice, before our public debate. I think that we might be able to square the circle in that way.

Shailesh Vara: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. Let me make it absolutely clear that I recognise that we are the public figures, and that there should be no undue pressure on officers and advisers to Parliament. I hope that I have also managed to convey, however, that this is nevertheless an issue. I am grateful to him for providing that suggestion. It is one that needs to be considered, but perhaps we should also consider other angles in trying to resolve the issue. The British public have a right to know what advice we have been given, but we also need to protect those who are giving the advice.

William Cash: In the interest of trying to assist, I point out that my hon. Friend might like to reflect on the fact that, if one were to apply criteria of the kind that are relevant to advice given within Departments, and the rules that apply in those circumstances and to evidence given to other Select Committees, there might be circumstances in which it would simply not be possible to have a completely open session of the kind that the Chairman of the Committee has mentioned. That is not because people want to be secretive about anything; it is simply because a different kind of process would be going on.

Shailesh Vara: My thanks go to my hon. Friend for that advice. Given that he has given 23 years' service to the Committee, I will certainly do as he instructs and give further thought to the matter. However, one of the amendments would give the Committee the option to sit in private if necessary. That covers the question of striking the right balance between private and public.
	I shall move on to, as it happens, the contribution of my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr. Cash), which was typically learned. He was right to point out that European scrutiny in the House is at the heart of all that we do. We are right to give it the attention that we do.
	This is a vital subject that recurs constantly in public debate and in the House. We, as servants of the people who have elected us, do them a great disservice if we do not give the subject the attention that it deserves. If the public out there are to be obligated by Brussels for at least 60 per cent. of the legislation of this country, they have a right to expect us to give proper scrutiny to all that comes from Brussels.

Helen Goodman: We have had a thorough debate on European scrutiny this afternoon, and I am pleased to be responding to it. The right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May) spoke on a whole range of issues, and I want first to address the question of overrides. I understand her concern about the level of overrides, but when looking—perhaps with envy—across the North sea at the mandate system that the Scandinavians have chosen, we have to take account of the fact that such a system fits their politics and their system of government, which involves coalitions and in which all positions have to be negotiated. That is simply not the position that we find ourselves in, and such a system would be too inflexible for us.
	During the right hon. Lady's speech, other hon. Members raised the issue of the new rights that Parliament will get under the Lisbon treaty. These are that Parliament should receive documents first and that if 30 per cent. of countries wish to play the orange card, the Commission will have to hold back on its proposals. It is our intention, when the Bill has been through Parliament, to enact the Lisbon treaty and come back— [Interruption.] When? When the Act has been passed, we will look more precisely into how these matters should be operated and what resources will be necessary to do so.

James Clappison: Now might be an appropriate moment for me to ask whether the Deputy Leader of the House has an answer to the question I posed earlier—how much of our legislation comes from EU institutions?

Helen Goodman: Despite the fact that, unlike Conservative Members, the Government are supported by the Rolls-Royce machine of the British civil service, I am afraid that I will have to write to the hon. Gentleman about that.
	Amendment (c) was proposed by the right hon. Member for Maidenhead. I understood her to say that she was prepared to work with us and withdraw the amendment. I was not sure whether the hon. Member for North-West Cambridgeshire (Mr. Vara) was quite as positive about that as the right hon. Lady, but as I said, I understood her to be happy about working together and waiting to see how things operate in practice.
	I know that at a certain point in my speech, my pages got into disorder, so in order to be absolutely clear—and particularly for the benefit of the hon. Member for North Southwark and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes)—let me repeat what I said. We will seek to proceed so that where a Standing Committee has agreed a resolution in different terms from the one proposed by the Government, the motion tabled for agreement in the House will be the one agreed by the Committee. There should be the possibility of having a debate if the Government subsequently seek to amend the motion.
	The right hon. Member for Maidenhead and many other hon. Members raised the issue of how membership of European Standing Committees is decided. It may help hon. Members if I provided a little more detail. Our proposal is for European Standing Committees to include people from the European Scrutiny Committee, from the Select Committee and other hon. Members who volunteer, which will provide both more expertise and more continuity—not just continuity between the scrutiny process and the European Committee process, but more continuity with respect to subject. As I tried to explain earlier, when we asked the Vote Office to provide hon. Members with papers on a continuing and ongoing basis by subject, we found that there were 12 such subjects. I believe that going for an ad hoc approach will, in fact, enable more continuity through the ad hoc Committees than was possible under the old permanent system where Committees were covering three, four or five different Departments. Our objective is to involve as many Members as possible so that, whatever their political interests, they can pursue them in respect of decisions taken at the European level, as well as at the national level. We need to get away from the situation where Europe is regarded as another country and where some Members specialise in it to the exclusion of the vast majority of other Members.
	The right hon. Member for Maidenhead also spoke to amendment (e), which relates to the European Scrutiny Committee having the power to conduct its work in public. As other hon. Members suggested in the debate, there are some genuine issues about how best to give effect to that proposal. The hon. Member for North-West Cambridgeshire set out the position in principle, but my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Michael Connarty) spoke from experience about how that could or should operate in practice.
	The Government are committed to enabling the arrangements to work in the way proposed by the Modernisation Committee in 2005. If the right hon. Member for Maidenhead is content to withdraw her amendment, we will discuss with the Opposition spokesmen and my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk how best to proceed. We will then present the House with a precise proposal to allow the European Scrutiny Committee to meet in public when discussing which documents are important and should be debated further, which will allow that important process to take place—when appropriate—with the transparency that hon. Members seek.
	The right hon. Lady's amendment does not require the motion tabled in the House to be the one agreed by the Committee, which was her intention. It also makes a debate mandatory. I understood that she wanted it merely to be an option.

Simon Hughes: I understand the point about the openness of the debate on which documents should be subjected to one process rather than the other, but will the hon. Lady address the wider question of whether the Committee should be presumed to meet in public unless it decides to meet in secret to discuss any matter before it?

Helen Goodman: The point that I was trying to make, obviously without success, is that there are issues of principle on which there is cross-party agreement that, whenever possible, things should be done in a way that is transparent to the public. However, a number of practical issues have been raised this afternoon. We are not satisfied that the amendment tabled by the right hon. Member for Maidenhead deals with all the practical difficulties that we face, and we would therefore be pleased if she withdrew it. We would then be prepared to enter into discussions on how best to proceed, so that we can come up with a resolution that can be agreed throughout the House.
	My right hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk—

Michael Connarty: I may be crucified, but I doubt that I shall be right honourable.

Helen Goodman: I was about to embark on a paean of praise. Obviously I got ahead of myself. My hon. Friend does an excellent job, as does the whole European Scrutiny Committee—in an extremely thorough way, and on extremely difficult territory—and we are all very grateful to him. As I said earlier, we are prepared to accept his amendment (a) to ensure that our proposals are reviewed again at the end of the year.
	The hon. Member for North Southwark and Bermondsey made a typically thoughtful speech. I hope he accepts that some of the seeds that he planted have flowered. He asked why the Government had not considered in more detail the possibility of a Joint Committee with the House of Lords. Obviously we have thought about that, and obviously the system in the House of Lords is very well respected, but the truth is that the Lords and Commons systems complement each other extremely well. Although Members of the House of Commons are often criticised for their inadequacies in relation to European matters, the Government believe that if we organise the work properly, that unfavourable comparison will be seen to be totally unfair.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Luton, North (Kelvin Hopkins) spoke from long experience as a member of a European Standing Committee as well as the European Scrutiny Committee. I hope that what I have said about the composition of the Committees will deal with his concerns.
	The hon. Member for Stone (Mr. Cash) spoke from his deep interest in this matter. He suggested that the Chairman of the European Scrutiny Committee should be a Member of Her Majesty's Opposition. We can rule that out absolutely at present because the Committee is in the safe hands of my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk. The hon. Member for North-West Cambridgeshire also gave a principled exposition of his views.
	We have had a thorough debate. I hope that we can come to an agreement and that the motion will be supported. I commend it to the House.
	 Amendment made: (a), in line 1, leave out
	'for the remainder of the current Parliament'
	and insert
	'until 1st January 2009'. — [Michael Connarty.]
	 Amendment made (e): in line 63, at end add—
	"(9A) The Committee, and every such sub-committee, shall sit in public unless it determines otherwise in relation to a particular meeting or part thereof.".'.— [Mrs. May.]
	 Main Question, as amended, agreed to.

PETITIONS

Post Office Closures (Newport)

Jessica Morden: I wish to present a petition on behalf of many residents and constituents in Newport who are concerned about the proposed closure of Christchurch Road post office. It is a busy and profitable branch, which plays a vital role in the local community and its closure would be contrary to the aims of the Post Office Ltd network change programme as there is no easy access to nearby services on foot and no public transport links to nearby branches, and businesses that use the service because it is accessible will, as there is no alternative, take their custom to banks. The large turnout for a public meeting held last week demonstrates the strength of local public feeling about the closure. The petitioners therefore request that this House urges the Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform to save this vital post office.
	 Following is the full text of the petition:
	 [ The Petition of the sub-postmaster and supporters of Christchurch Road Post Office in Newport,
	 Declares that Christchurch Road Post Office continues to play a vital role in the local community by providing essential and convenient services; that to shut a profitable and busy Post Office is contrary to the proposed goal of the Post Office Ltd's network change programme; that the route to the alternative Post Office means walking down a very steep hill; which would have a detrimental effect on customers who are elderly or disabled who would be unable to access other Post Office services.
	 The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform to save this vital Post Office.
	 And the Petitioners remain, etc. ]
	[P000117]

Post Office Closures (North Yorkshire)

Anne McIntosh: I have great pleasure in submitting a petition on the post office closures in North Yorkshire, with particular reference to the Linton on Ouse Post Office Action Group. This petition is timely as tomorrow the announcement is expected on the result of the consultation on the post office network. I regret to have to say that it has been a flawed consultation. I understand that the changes to the network are going to proceed as planned. No consultation has been allowed on the principle of closures and it appears that the consultation has no regard to the responses received. No account has been taken of the rurality factor, particularly in rural areas such as North Yorkshire. Apparently, one post office will close, and a number of outreach solutions are being proposed. The petitioners of Linton on Ouse do not accept that an outreach solution—a man in a van—is a substitute for a proper, fully serviced post office. The post office is the hub of the local rural community. It is especially important in rural areas for the vulnerable, the elderly, the less mobile and those with young families. It therefore gives me pleasure to submit the petition to the House.
	 Following is the full text of the petition:
	 [ The Humble Petition of Mr Derrick Jauncey of Save Linton on Ouse Post Office Action Group and others of like disposition,
	 Sheweth
	 That they fear the proposed Post Office Network review will result in unacceptable numbers of Post Office closures. They wish to see their access to Post Offices across North Yorkshire to remain as wide as is currently the case and that there be no further cuts in postal services. They recognise that their Post Offices provide a vital service in a rural community to the most vulnerable, the elderly, the less mobile, and those with young families.
	 Wherefore your Petitioners pray that your Honourable House urges the Government to reverse the Post Office's proposed Network Change Programme.
	 And your Petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray, &c. ]
	[P000122]

SUICIDE PREVENTION

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn. —[Mr. David.]

Madeleine Moon: I thank the Speaker's Office for generously finding time for this debate. The Under-Secretary of State for Wales, my hon. Friend the Member for Ogmore (Huw Irranca-Davies), is answering this debate. His constituency is to the north of mine, and together they make up the county borough of Bridgend. Sadly, the national media often confuse the county borough, the town and my parliamentary constituency of Bridgend, joining them into a single metropolis "death town" of many problems. Throughout this debate I shall use "Bridgend" to denote the county borough, which covers both constituencies.
	If ever a debate had cross-departmental consequences, it is this one on the nature of suicide. Some responsibilities and questions lie with the Wales Office, but others lie with the Department of Health, the Department for Communities and Local Government, the Department for Work and Pensions, the Department for Children, Schools and Families and the Home Office. I should therefore like to take the opportunity to thank the Under-Secretary of State for Health, my hon. Friend the Member for Bury, South (Mr. Lewis), who has responsibility for mental health, the Home Secretary and the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Garston (Maria Eagle), who has responsibility for criminal justice, all of whom have agreed to meet me to discuss this issue.
	I want to start by putting into perspective the numbers committing suicide. The UK's suicide rate pales in comparison with those of Canada, Australia and Ireland, whose figures are more than double the UK figure. Many European countries have much higher figures than the UK. Bridgend has featured heavily in the local, national and international media as the suicide town, as the home of a suicide cult and as death town. As I hope to show, the suicide problem lies not in the high number of deaths in Bridgend but in the high number of deaths in Wales. I therefore welcome the presence of my Welsh colleagues in this debate.
	Four years ago, I began noticing a cluster of suicides of young males. It reached a peak in 2006 when 17 young people in the Bridgend constituency and four in Ogmore took their own lives—that makes a total of 21 in Bridgend. As the press has highlighted many times in recent weeks, a similar number of suicides occurred last year.
	I knew some of the young men who died. I had talked to one days before his death about an apprenticeship that he was taking up. I had met others through our excellent Youth Enterprise, Lifelong Learning, Opportunities for Work—YELLOW—project. It was set up by Hafod housing to work with homeless young people, many of whom had drug and alcohol problems, all of whom had chaotic lives that YELLOW helped to stabilise and then move forward into being successful lives. Some people claim that there is nothing one can do to prevent suicide, as one cannot see it coming, but they are wrong—much can be done, and it needs doing urgently in Wales.
	Bridgend county borough moved from being the 113th worst local authority area on this issue in the period 1991 to 1997 to the 48th worst in the period 1998 to 2004. Yet these deaths kept coming—on average, two a month locally, but across Wales a shocking 21 a month occurred in 2006. The Bridgend coroner, Philip Walters, has said he believes that there are possibly more, as there have also been 40 deaths in Bridgend with open verdicts since 2006.
	People ask me why, and what is going wrong locally. They want to pin the problem down to one cause. The media have asked whether the cause is the internet, Bebo, Facebook or other networking sites. The answer is yes and no. I believe there is a risk from spending too much time in the alternative reality of computer games and chat rooms. There are risks to young people who give out intimate personal details in cyberspace thinking that they are safe. I also believe that for a vulnerable person who is contemplating suicide, the isolation of communication through words on a screen does not provide the warmth, humanity, compassion and empathy of talking to another person.
	I know that for some people e-mail can allow emotions to be articulated and shared in a way they would find difficult in person. The Samaritans have successfully operated an e-mail communication link that allows young men, in particular, to do that. I urge anyone who is unable to talk but who wants to use e-mail to communicate emotional distress to e-mail the Samaritans or PAPYRUS, not a chat room. I have arranged to meet a representative from Bebo to discuss how the site can help to reach out to vulnerable young people, and was encouraged to hear that it is already working closely with the Samaritans. Bebo representatives recently gave a presentation at the suicide prevention convention in Killarney.
	American research has found that young people who commit suicide are more likely than their peers to have had a friend who died through suicide. That certainly rings true in the cases in my constituency. Mind has stated that the aftermath of a suicide appears to be a dangerous time for those in close proximity, as they identify with the victim and are already vulnerable. The emotional furore that follows death may loosen internal restraints against self-destruction. That is why I have been so angry about the press coverage. It is why it is absolutely vital that the press should follow the Samaritans' guidelines if they are not to add to the problem. It is why emotional literacy and life skills are important to help young people survive.
	When faced with real death and the intensity of emotional pain, many young people have no experience of how to deal with that pain. Their peers lack the life experiences and words to help and the knowledge of where to go for guidance. That is backed up by figures from ChildLine, which show that girls are 11 times more likely to call about self-harm than boys and account for four out of every five calls that mention suicides. Boys and young men are likely to be nearer the end of their tether; they do not typically ask for help until they are desperate.
	It is important that the gender stereotypes—wherever they occur—that reinforce the idea that men should be self-reliant and able to cope are challenged at every level. That is why the Samaritans' campaigns are so important. They direct people to help and support that is readily accessible and that allows young people to have support on their own terms and in their own territory, which is critical.

Julie Morgan: I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate and on the amount of effort she has put into trying to deal with this tragic situation. I am pleased that she mentioned the Samaritans and the good work that they do. I have strong contacts with the Samaritans in Cardiff. Does my hon. Friend know about the listening scheme in Cardiff prison? It trains prisoners to listen to other prisoners, who are often young, vulnerable men. It is important to have someone there to listen to the problems face to face.

Madeleine Moon: I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. I am well aware of the work that she does with the Samaritans in Cardiff and the support that she gives the organisation. I am aware of the scheme, which also operates in Parc prison in Bridgend, and of how critical it is. It is also important for those prisoners who take part in the scheme, as they learn how to listen, talk and recognise their emotions. They tell me about the change that that has made to their lives, and the future that opens up for them when they learn to articulate and deal with strong emotion.
	The suicide in Avon study found that 80 per cent. of young male suicides had no contact with their GP, psychiatrist or other support agency in the four weeks before they died. In fact, they were five times more likely to have had contact with the police than with any other agency. People ask me whether the problem is one of drugs and alcohol. The answer is that it is for some young people, but not for others.
	Bridgend, like too many constituencies, has young people who turn to drugs and alcohol. Sometimes they do it to seek respite from depression, emotional confusion and a sense of failure and despair. I spent part of last summer's recess with the local mental health services, especially with those dealing with drugs and alcohol, and I am certain that those services need to be expanded. Waiting lists for help and advice are too long, and the range of services that is needed is simply not available.
	My hon. Friend the Minister will remember coming with me last year to meet staff at Bridgend's Wallich mental health facility. They made a plea for help to establish a wet hostel, where those who are not yet ready to give up alcohol and drugs could live and be supported and stabilised. In that way, they would be able to give up their dependency.
	I have also had contact with people living in communities across the world where there have been suicide clusters. They have given me advice about how they have tackled the problem, and I especially thank Dr. Cassidy from Northern Ireland for the details of the strategy employed there. I have passed that information on to agencies in my locality.
	Last week, I talked to the mother of a 19-year-old young man who took his life. He left school at 16 and found an unskilled job. He was struggling to enter the adult world of responsibilities and problem solving, but had a flat and a job. Then he lost his job and, lacking skills and qualifications, he struggled to find another one. Debts mounted up: at 19 years of age, he did not qualify for full housing benefit, and he could not find the support and help that he needed. He turned to drugs and alcohol to hide from his sense of failure and despair. He was known to the police, and his life spiralled downwards. It grew more chaotic, and so it became even more impossible for him to find a job.
	That young man attempted suicide but could get no further help. Shortly afterwards, he killed himself. Like too many others, his family is now struggling with the aftermath of his death. His mother has given up her job and is having counselling, and his siblings are greatly distressed. This young man's mother has complained of the lack of support services for families who are bereaved and devastated by suicide. We all tend to forget them as a group, but the degree of devastation that they experience is immense.
	The young man about whom I have spoken is not typical of all those who have died. The mental health services knew about him, but he did not know about the Samaritans. I commend the local Samaritans for the prompt action that they took. They have a campaign with a proven track record that is being rolled out across Bridgend.
	I also want to thank Andrew Goodall of the local health board. When we met last Friday, he agreed to find the money to fund the campaign. Ironically, we met at the Bridgend recreation centre's excellent exhibition of health and well-being—an example of good partnership working involving the local health board, the primary care trust, the local authority and the voluntary sector. A similar partnership has worked for the past year to develop a local suicide strategy, and I am advised that that will be launched in the next few weeks. I commend that local initiative but, while work on a local strategy has been undertaken and research has been gathered about similar problems in Scotland, 22 young people have died.
	Wales had a target of cutting suicides by 15 per cent. by 2000, but in 2002 that target was cut to 10 per cent. Neither target was met—in fact, the suicide rate in Wales increased. For many years, groups such as Papyrus have been asking the Welsh Assembly to consider formulating a national suicide prevention strategy. Given that Wales has a significantly higher suicide rate than England, it is striking and shocking that Wales has not yet done so. Since England introduced the suicide prevention strategy in 2002, suicide has dropped dramatically across all age groups, and the upward trend in suicides among young males has been reversed. The overall suicide rate there is now the lowest on record. Wales is many years behind not just England but Scotland, Northern Ireland and many other countries.
	At the international suicide prevention conference in Killarney, people from all over the world met to share their prevention work and, most importantly, their expertise. I am told that there was no representation from Wales. Representatives from Scotland, England and Northern Ireland meet regularly to discuss implementation of their respective strategies. Wales is missing out on an opportunity to share good practice and, vitally, to learn from others.
	Money is key to a successful strategy. Scotland invested £20 million in its 2002 Choose Life strategy. Bridgend is relying on lottery funding that may be available in 2009 for its locally written strategy. I am sure that other hon. Members will find it unacceptable that young people may die while waiting for charity funds to be made available.
	I have repeatedly been asked whether deprivation is the problem. If one reads the national press, Bridgend is a ghost town, and suicide is just what people do there because there is nothing else to do, but we have good schools, low unemployment, active churches, an active voluntary sector and social cohesion. Community identity remains strong. It is a good place to live and bring up a family. Like many parts of the UK, it does have some young people who are marginalised. Some have troubled family lives, some do not do well in school, some have mental health problems and some use drugs and alcohol. All of them have a common feeling of despair and failure, and can see no future ahead of them—no future for which to live and work.

Nia Griffith: I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate on a distressing subject. She and other hon. Members will be aware that the Education and Skills Bill is in Committee. It places an obligation on authorities to follow up on all 16 to 18-year-olds and offer them education and training opportunities. Does she agree that that might offer support to some of the young people whom we are not currently reaching, and might help to prevent some suicides?

Madeleine Moon: I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. I totally agree: it is critical that that support is available to young people in Wales. That statutory requirement on local authorities and trainers to provide support and access to education, training and apprenticeships is vital for our young people in Wales.
	Suicide is everybody's business. We need a population-based approach and trained people in the community who are ready, willing and able to intervene. Mind's training programme, ASIST—applied suicide intervention skills training—is central to the national suicide prevention strategy in Scotland, Ireland and Norway. The Scottish Executive's recent review of the Choose Life strategy said that ASIST was the most successful activity to be mainstreamed to date. The aim is to train as many people as possible within the community to be able to recognise anyone who is suicidal. The focus of the workshop is on immediate safety, not fixing problems. It is described as suicide first aid. I am extremely pleased that the Welsh Assembly Government are backing the roll-out of the ASIST programme across Wales, under a joint plan by the local health board and voluntary organisations in Bridgend.
	I am aware that I must conclude. I ask my hon. Friend the Minister to raise a number of issues with the First Minister in Wales and others here in Westminster, to ensure that there is an understanding that this Welsh problem needs an urgent response. Wales needs a national suicide prevention strategy. There are successful templates in Scotland and England, and there is a local strategy for Bridgend. Money must be found for the Bridgend strategy; we cannot be expected to wait for lottery funding. The money must be provided so that the strategy can start immediately.
	There is excellent work in Bridgend: Porthcawl counselling service, the Bridgend street pastors, the community safety partnership, Ogwr DASH—the drugs and alcohol self-help group—the West Glamorgan council on drugs and alcohol and the community drugs and alcohol team. The bones are there; flesh is needed in the form of a strategy, additional funding and information to tell young people where services are and where help is available. The Mind ASIST training being rolled out across Wales will be invaluable to front-line workers such as the police, as it will to mental health workers, youth workers, GPs and church leaders, who are often contacted by friends and family for advice and support in the devastation that follows each suicide.
	Will my hon. Friend the Minister discuss with the Department for Work and Pensions the impact on vulnerable young people of the policy of restricting access to part housing benefit? I appreciate the reason behind the policy, but I urge my hon. Friend to ensure that conversations take place with organisations such as Wallich and YELLOW to assess fully its impact on the most vulnerable.
	Like my hon. Friend the Member for Llanelli (Nia Griffith), I recognise the value of the Education and Skills Bill, currently in Committee, to the most vulnerable and marginalised young people—those most at risk of seeing life as holding too little for their future, and who need support as they struggle with young adulthood, finding work and developing skills and training. I urge my hon. Friend the Minister to discuss with the First Minister the vital role adopting the Bill will play, from 2013, in offering young people in Wales hope for the future in an increasingly complex world where there is little tolerance of those who fail to meet employers' rising expectations. Finally, I urge my hon. Friend to meet a delegation of Welsh colleagues, who are all concerned about the issues in their constituencies, so that he can convey to the First Minister how concerned we are here in Westminster.
	Mr. Deputy Speaker, I thank you for your indulgence. With a young person dying on average every two weeks in Bridgend, this is not the time for delay. This is the time for action—for our young people to be given the same help and support that is available in England and Scotland. My hon. Friend the Minister and I do not want to be talking to journalists about further deaths. We want to talk about success and how wonderful Bridgend and Wales are to live in, to work and raise a family.

Simon Hughes: I very much commend the hon. Member for Bridgend (Mrs. Moon). She may know that part of my upbringing was spent in south Wales, near the area where she lives and which she represents. I endorse what she says about the wonderful community nature of south Wales and Glamorgan, not just in Bridgend and Ogmore but in other places, too.
	When my brother and I were youngsters in south Wales, our mother worked as a volunteer with Cardiff Samaritans. Even then, I knew how important that work was. Confidentiality was maintained, but families were aware of the pressures on young people, especially on young men. We moved to Hereford when I was 18, and so convinced was our dear mother of the need for that work that she helped to found the Hereford branch of Samaritans and in due course became its director. She died last year, and it was a tribute to her that the Hereford Samaritans recognised her contribution—as did the wider community.
	I wanted to speak as someone who is an ambassador for the Samaritans, and who endorses completely the message that people who do not think they are vulnerable, particularly young men, should remember that the Samaritans are there 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. I also endorse Papyrus, of which I am one of three cross-party parliamentary patrons. The organisation works to support families when youngsters take their lives. It also responds to people who are thinking of suicide, to prevent them.
	The hon. Member for Bridgend made it clear that the issue affects all of us. When I was in my 20s, a friend suddenly took their life, to the shock and consternation of their family, simply because it appeared that they had received a job rejection. That was the trigger, but clearly there must have been some underlying cause. I remember a godchild of mine, as a university student, going through a very hard time and family and friends being extremely worried about my godchild's mental health and stability. Only last year a friend lost their life, probably in circumstances that were similar.
	The message must go out from here that the Government will respond in Wales and elsewhere, but individuals and families should know that there is always somebody who can be a personal contact—not an electronic contact, but a personal contact at the end of a line. If people do not know the number, I hope that after this debate it will be better known. Bridgend, like everywhere else, will, I hope, be a slightly safer place where people who feel tempted to think that taking their lives is the answer may be reminded that there are always better ways.

Huw Irranca-Davies: First, I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgend (Mrs. Moon) on securing the debate on such an important and timely issue as suicide prevention strategies. I thank her for the calm, measured and well informed way in which she introduced the debate, and for her work, not just recently but over a sustained period with others to bring an end to this tragic string of events.
	The issue is of great concern to Members of Parliament, Assembly Members and elected representatives, all of whom will want to find a way forward for the families and communities affected. Our thoughts and sympathies go out to the families and friends who have been affected by these tragedies. As a father myself, I struggle to imagine the devastation caused by those young deaths. It is a time for sombre reflection, and for considered and effective action.
	The consequences in emotional and practical terms are felt by many of us, from close family members and friends, to colleagues, the many statutory and voluntary agencies involved in the provisions of health and social care, and the wider community. We would all want, I am sure, to pay tribute to those who are actively working with young people and supporting them in making sense of these tragic events.
	Over the past few weeks, as my hon. Friend said, because of a number of family tragedies, the national media spotlight has been focused on Bridgend and Ogmore, the parliamentary constituencies that she and I represent. The reasons the Bridgend area is under intense focus are clear. We acknowledge that over the past 10 years rates of suicide among those aged 16 to 29 have been higher than elsewhere in Wales. The recent deaths of young women, an untypical pattern, and speculation over links through the internet or other means have given Bridgend understandable prominence.
	As my hon. Friend said, it is important that we put those events in context. The Bridgend population overall has suicide rates approximating the Welsh average. There are other areas in Wales and the UK that have similar or higher rates, or where clusters can be identified. The UK as a whole has one of the lowest suicide rates in Europe and the rest of the world. That context is vital.
	My hon. Friend referred to the role of the media. Research shows that media reporting can have a significant impact and influence on young people's response to suicides. Therefore, I strongly urge measured and considered reporting of all such events and of the debate today, with consideration for the impact that that may have on the bereaved families and the wider community.
	There has been much speculation about internet suicide rooms and cults. We all share the public's concern about websites that may have an undue influence over vulnerable people, particularly the young, but caution is needed. No one should jump to conclusions about the connection between internet sites and the deaths in Bridgend or elsewhere. Work is ongoing in relation to the internet and forms one strand of the Byron review, an independent review commissioned by the Prime Minister. The Ministry of Justice is also due to publish safer network guidance, and I am aware of the work of the Samaritans and other agencies, which have been mentioned by hon. Members, and their contribution to that work.

Hugo Swire: I thank the hon. Member for Bridgend (Mrs. Moon) for her debate, which follows on from last night's Adjournment debate, in which I mentioned this issue, on the filtering of internet content for children. The Minister mentioned the Byron review, to which we all look forward with considerable interest. Does he know whether the Samaritans will give evidence to it?

Huw Irranca-Davies: That is a useful intervention. I cannot say categorically that they will, but I hope so. They have substantial experience in this field and without a doubt it would be helpful if they contributed to the review.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Bridgend and others will know that the Welsh Assembly Government have devolved powers in health and social services, so it is right to highlight the approach in Wales. Within Wales, the Department for Children, Education, Lifelong Learning and Skills is working actively on internet safety, with a child exploitation and online protection centre. Furthermore, the UK police agency has undertaken significant pieces of work in this area and the health promotion information division of the Welsh Assembly Government has provided resources for secondary schools on internet and mobile phone safety.
	All hon. Members will note the call by Mind Cymru to run training in all Welsh schools for the prevention of suicide, in line with the applied suicide intervention skills training programme, or ASIST—a suicide prevention initiative funded by the Welsh Assembly Government. My hon. Friend is aware that a fully subscribed ASIST course will be running in Bridgend shortly, and I know that she has fully supported that. During the past year, ASIST has trained more than 400 people from 60 different organisations in Wales, and it will make a significant contribution to the skills of local professionals engaged in suicide prevention.
	The community advice and listening line in Wales, or CALL, has periodic advertising campaigns and the children's branch has just contributed funding so that parents of children who have committed or attempted suicide are aware of the service and can contact it easily. On 10 October last year, world mental health day, a text messaging service was also launched.
	Funding from the mental health branch to the Samaritans, who have significant expertise in this field, has doubled to £38,000 for 2008-09 from the 2007-08 funding level. The mental health promotion action plan has already commissioned a flagship programme of mental health first aid, which will be delivered by Mind Cymru.
	I echo my hon. Friend's words—I welcome the action that has already begun locally; the draft suicide prevention strategy for Bridgend has been circulated to more than 30 stakeholders. That should be a kick-start for all agencies, schools and the local community to take action. My hon. Friend has recognised the value of that approach and rightly urges that that coherent strategy be put fully and urgently into effect.
	I turn to other issues that have been raised. My hon. Friend mentioned the YELLOW and Wallich projects, which extend across the Bridgend area. My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, North (Julie Morgan) and the hon. Member for North Southwark and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes) referred to the work of the Samaritans. It is absolutely right to praise that work and that of countless others in the voluntary and statutory sectors. I am also thinking of the Kenfig Hill, Pyle and Cornelly youth group, the boys' and girls' clubs and the youth organisations that provide services day in, day out, year in, year out. Volunteers often form the backbone of their work. Schools and social services in Bridgend and elsewhere deserve credit for their role.
	In respect of taking up issues with the Welsh Assembly Government and others, my hon. Friend and my hon. Friend the Member for Llanelli (Nia Griffith) rightly mentioned the role of other Whitehall Departments, including the Department for Work and Pensions, the Department of Health, the Department for Children, Schools and Families. I assure hon. Members that they will listen closely to this debate. We in the Wales Office will play our full role in liaising with other Government Departments and the Welsh Assembly Government on these issues.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Bridgend rightly raised the important issue of a suicide prevention strategy for all Wales. I hope that she will be reassured when I say that the Welsh Assembly Government is as concerned as any to address that issue fully and listen carefully to all representations and this important debate. However, it is for that Government to introduce measures that respond to the situation in Wales. However, I can advise my hon. Friend that the Welsh Assembly Government Minister, Edwina Hart, had, prior to the recent events, commissioned work to examine national strategies on suicide prevention and is firmly seized of the need to respond to these issues in the most effective and coherent manner.

Simon Hughes: The hon. Member for Bridgend (Mrs. Moon) rightly mentioned Papyrus. Will the Minister undertake to ensure that the Welsh Assembly Government are fully linked with and supporting Papyrus in Wales, and will he talk to his colleagues in the UK Government to ensure that that happens elsewhere in the UK?
	 It being Six o'clock, the motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.
	 Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn. —[Mr. David.]

Huw Irranca-Davies: Yes, indeed; the hon. Gentleman makes an important point, and I am happy to give those undertakings. I am of course always ready, as is my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, to meet him and others who share these concerns, while recognising that the Welsh Assembly Government have significant devolved powers in this area and that other Whitehall Departments have a role to play as well.
	The likelihood of a person taking their own life depends on many factors, which can include physically disabling or painful illnesses, mental illnesses, alcohol and drug misuse, stressful life events such as the loss of a job, imprisonment, a death or relationship breakdown, or just disillusion with circumstances in life. Those are just a few factors, but for many people it can be a combination of factors, rather than any single one that leads them to take their own life. These are complex and deeply personal issues with complex and multi-faceted solutions. We need to look at the real issues underlying these tragedies and find ways to prevent any more families from going through the same heartache. We need to address the stigma surrounding suicide so that everyone, including teenagers, parents and teachers, feels able to talk openly about their views on suicide—the causes and the consequences. It is only by talking to each other that we can start to understand the reasons behind it and learn to read the signs that lead to these tragedies. We also need to address the socio-economic issues and social exclusion factors, which are worthy of a separate debate.
	It is important that we try to learn lessons from the tragic incidents that have occurred to enable us to consider how we can prevent future deaths. Suicide prevention should not be seen as the exclusive responsibility of any one sector of society. We must all play our part in reducing suicides, including local communities. Evidence suggests that lives can be saved when local agencies and voluntary organisations work together to deter suicides in high-risk locations. I commend the determination of my parliamentary neighbour and hon. Friend, and others here today, in playing their role, as this is what the families and communities affected would want, and surely deserve.
	 Question put and agreed to.
	 Adjourned accordingly at two minutes past Six o'clock.